Autopsy of a Child
A poetic reflection on shadowing in the medical examiner’s office.
Off the Shelf
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Louisville School of Medicine
Erin is a Class of 2016 medical student. She has a B.A. in English. She took a year off before medical school to work as a Emergency Medicine scribe, and to learn how to make cupcakes from scratch. She enjoys discovering the story-telling inherent in every patient encounter.
That Path Towards the Elusive ‘MD’ (2014)
As a busy medical student, I have struggled to continue having time to make art. So, I decided to draw a cartoon about the process and development that is medical school. I have sensed in myself a huge transformation over the last two years, since beginning school in August 2012. I have had many hard times, dark times, but I also always have uplifting moments that remind me of why I want to become a physician.
Bless The Lord O My Soul
The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning It’s time to sing your song again. I prayed for Nina Pham yesterday. I prayed a pithy resident’s prayer. The prayer took (give or take) the amount of time that it takes for me to walk from my parking space to the revolving door of my hospital. In a huge tertiary care facility, a resident might have a formidable trek from her car to the revolving …
autumn autopsy
as I walk away from your linoleum tomb I run my tongue over cracked lips for the first time and they are no longer attached but hanging like you were and will always be suspended from cold mental concrete waiting for warm hands to pull you down and then pull you apart before your body bursts into a thousand crisp autumn leaves and the wind scoops you up scatters beautiful bright sun droplets over your …
Ward Wonders
The echo of heartbeats near the newfound graves, With the first breath of life and the last sigh of death Waving to each other in the night. Birthdays and funerals march along in unison, doors apart. Faces in scrubs rise and set with the sun, While those stuck in bed can only change their gowns, and wait. The rhythmic beeps of machines And the clack of shoes on the linoleum floor Sing a comforting melody. …
Stethoscope
I came to be in 1816, Before then I was never seen. During my birth tuberculosis ran wild, I think it is fair to say I saved the life of a child. I arose from the astute mind of Monsieur Laënnec, I bet you did not detect my French accent. I’m often found around your neck, Nowadays I can get pretty high-tech. Sometimes I float in your white coat pocket, But …
Old Talents
One of the things that I have learnt Ever since I have embarked on this long, long journey Is that with endless responsibilities Comes the increasing importance of prioritizing and letting go What matters most And what matters less Always in some sort of dynamic balance between Marching towards a tangible goal and Melting down in a binary world of studying and not. Twelve years, sounds like a long time So many years of …
The Grief Playlist
They have a term for it in the medical school curriculum: Breaking Bad News. An important communication objective. As a physician, I championed the “Breaking Bad News” clinical skills sessions, preferred them to the physical exam teachings that became dry and stale year after year. I volunteered to facilitate a small group every autumn, gently redirecting students as they fumbled through the contrived scenarios with an often over-zealous actor.
Worry
A frail man leaned against the wall, Gasping for breath, afraid to fall. The rest of him shivered in panic at the thought A heart attack, perhaps or a stroke, blood clot? “I must be going crazy,” repeated his heartbeat. “I must try to calm down and take a seat.” The doctors marched in with the test results and all, They lined up against the opposite wall. Explained to the patient the source of …
The Study of Gratitude
They are your first patients we were told. And like with later patients, with them we shared discovery, struggles and triumphs. I learned from each and every one, so much, so generously, each and every day. But unlike any other patients I will ever know, when I was with them I was in the presence of extraordinary grace and giving. And in those moments when the sky was darkening outside the windows and the …
Angel
Calm. Only the gentle hum of electricity resonated in the sticky, stagnant air caught halfway between dusk and dawn. The mist itself seemed to vibrate unseeingly as it matched the sleeper’s own rhythms. It had grown heavy in the absence of the daytime winds, and had learned to relish fondly its brief ownership of the night – there were many hours yet before it would be forced to relinquish ownership of the river valley’s people …
Parenthesis
It was a Thursday in November, a day that felt like neither Thursday nor November a few weeks after my diagnosis that hadn’t seemed quite right, either, and here it was, on the page: the perfect trap, the perfect analogy. The patient (My Name No closing parenthesis. Now perhaps you’re one of those people who thinks that a missing closing parenthesis is just another typo, like a comma too few or too many. Perhaps you’ve …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Amanda Rutishauser is a Class of 2016 medical student at the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University. She holds a BS in creative writing and microbiology from the University of Michigan and an MS in narrative medicine from Columbia University. She is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards and a William Carlos Williams Poetry award. She lives in West Michigan with her canary, Winston.
