Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
Lisa grew up in Houston, Texas, went to college in the lovely town of Denton, and moved to Chicago to begin medical school in 2010. She is planning on a career in family medicine. Her academic interests include integrative medicine, mindfulness, nutrition and women's health. Her personal interests include poetry, cooking, yoga, and seeking out all the ways these areas of life overlap.
I know his hands so very well. I get beneath the skin. I discover what could make them tremble Or cause the dorsum hairs to stand on end. I intimately study these hands That are—or, were— Eighty-three years old. An image is permanently burned into my mind. I hold his hand to reposition his arm, As if it were that of a living person. I wonder who held it last Before I …
We who were always overachievers. Who missed the dusk of our adolescence solving multiple-choice questions. We who began our adult lives spending alternate days with corpses. Who carry bones in our bags and books that break our backs. Who spend the best years of youth in the grime of wards. Who have already witnessed a lifetime’s share of deaths. Who learn about depression but fail to recognise it in ourselves. We who have no definite …
Author’s note: This piece will be published in the University of Alabama School of Medicine’s upcoming Voices in Word Literary Journal, published by its Narrative Medicine Interest Group. Descended from Spanish-English lineage but made in China, Javier Fitzsimmons’s brown, burly, furry form lay squished against the basket grating by the weight of a multitude of stuffed animals. In the 1500s after the wreckage of the Spanish Armada washed up along the English shores, a poor Spanish soldier …
The skin is the boldest yet most bashful organ of the body. Parts of it will be exposed to the world’s eye with no problems at all. However, other areas are so timid that they are only exposed on the most embarrassing or intimate of occasions. The skin can tell a person’s life story — it can expose the lifelong struggles and daily grind of a coal miner, the bad habits of a longtime smoker, …
Stumbling through bus doors, he stomps mud-slated boots, grins me a brown-toothed “hey.” His ruffled voice drifts to me, as though we’re been siblings, or decade-long friends, and tonight’s moonless chat on the bus just another usual chat. He offers me a swig of his pink juice and when I refuse, he downs one until his face turns to a flamingo pink, and blood engulfs his cheeks. In the stuffy air softened by vodka, I …
I want so much to put my art into the world, to share all that stuff that resides inside each of us and that for me falls somewhere between poetry, prose and prayer. But I also want to disappear from the earth, to take refuge in a singular devotion, like the nuns who ran the home for the children that I played with in my motherland. Part of me wants to wield policy and paperwork, …
The alarm rings. Its shrill screech jars him out of sleep and his eyes slowly open. He lays there a moment, listening to its piercing repetition. He considers falling back to sleep. After a moment he rolls out of bed and his feet hit the cold wood floor. He touches the top of the clock and the room falls back into silence. As the covers fall away, the chill from the morning air touches his …
Velocity of Movement Kiran Sethi and Vincent Venincasa (2012) acrylic on canvas We hoped to capture the fast-paced atmosphere of the medical profession, highlighting the high-volume information system that we use to treat patients. While each individual stroke may seem trivial, when combined they form the full picture—that of a complex, but beautiful patient case. Exemplifying the importance of a well-versed physician in more than just medicine, we painted this piece solely through dance with …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
I am currently a Class of 2015 medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. I attended college at the University of Miami. I am an avid sports fan and enjoy the humanities as well.
