Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Toral Patel is a BS and MS graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham in molecular biology. She is currently a Class of 2015 student at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, AL.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
“Good afternoon, Ms. Starflight. My name is Samantha Miller, and I am a student doctor working with Dr. Singh. I know you have answered so many questions in the past few hours, but do you mind if I ask you a few more?” Haha, ‘Starflight’, what an alias? How can these people be so uninhibited? Sometimes I’m not sure I’m even seeing real pathology. These people are just like me with a little less holding …
It was late, but she was still awake. Her mother had long since put her to bed and gone to sleep, but she was still awake. She crawled out of bed and tiptoed gingerly down the stairs. She didn’t turn on any lights, not wanting her mother to find her out of bed. She remembered to be especially careful on the last stair; it was creaky, and her mother’s bedroom door was only a few …
In that sweet primordial pause before knowing, before knowing you had that brilliant lub without whose cause my sinus would but sing for two. This small sound within the chamber mocks with flagrant range the mistook letter which does not describe the valve but more the knock of passion greater than mere muscle twitch. I have no way of knowing the golden disarray: how you would stare at tiring light pound the heart and dry …
At the start, it was Crisp Like the sound of a chilled cucumber Snapped in half briskly on a hot summer day Fresh In the novelty of all things A foreign state with foreign friends A foreign box to call a home. With time, it was replaced with The reek Of persistent formaldehyde Clinging to every pore And every item owned (despite relentless efforts to sterilize and compartmentalize) Its phantom stench in almost every aroma …
In the kitchen on the floor counting the tiles Again because the number slips Like all the other numbers slip Nothing can be proven this way or solved And when you call, you never mean to call the names you say are not the names You leave the windows open while the neighbors try not to see But sometimes it is pieced together A quilt like waves in a squall Electricity the thread A brilliant …
A piece of cloth decorated with cartoon animals or light blue patterns. It can vary in size but not style. It brings fear, uncertainty and vulnerability. It symbolizes dramatic, unwelcome changes in people’s lives. It is a hospital gown. Wearing a hospital gown—naked underneath—you, the patient, burst the bubble of privacy and emerge upon an unusual level of trust. You reveal your most intimate moments as you lead your physician into your world. You ask …
They say that when you sleep, you formulate memories. The last thing I see before I shut my eyes, are you part of them? You are my most intimate partner, The only one who shares my bed. What do you think of when you watch me sleep? Why do you not provide me with the safety I seek? I try so hard to hold you close, To fill in the holes, the gaps, in my …
Perhaps it was the persistent scare of the superbug that compelled the sun-riser to surrender to the notion that a coffee cup had been sullied by a minor fall: that the time perceived was unequal and unrelated to the speed of selfish microbes settling on the rim where his mouth was meant to be. The Unknown Soldier in his drowsy cadence assumed clumsy control over the machine while residents in loose blue pants were …
Medical Student Editor and in-Training Staff Member
Albany Medical College
Steven attends Albany Medical College as a student of the Class of 2017. Raised in Queens, New York, he earned a BA in English with a minor in Biology from Binghamton University in May 2013. Some of his interests include poetry, martial arts, traveling, and continental philosophy. He is currently aspiring to become a radiologist.
