Between the Dead and the Dying
A scalpel, a corpse — / His beard is neat, his eyes are / Empty. Gloves hide clammy hands / Afraid of what awaits beneath
Writers-in-Training
Medical Student Editor and Contributing Writer
SUNY Downstate College of Medicine
Gabe is a fourth year medical student at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, New York. In 2017, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Gabe is interested in the power of creative and reflective writing for both patients and providers, and in his free time, he enjoys reading, writing, and exploring Brooklyn. After he graduates medical school, Gabe hopes to pursue a residency in psychiatry and eventually become a clinical educator.
CLL (Child Learning Love)
You call me on a Thursday to tell me / You were diagnosed with leukemia in October.
Six Feet Apart
One inch more than the measure of me, and one inch less than that of my father. It’s been a while since I lined up, back to back. But if I did, the space between us would only read two inches. Maybe less now that he is older. Nearly sixty. Closer to the next decade than the last.
Drinking Grapefruit Juice
I didn’t know / many can’t / sip coral pulpy bitter / juice from narrow glasses.
The Anatomy Lesson
There were seven of us standing around the table as the attending surgeon debrided the infected fascia. The vascular surgeon came in the room and barked at us to identify the structures before us. “What’s that artery?” he interrogated us. “I’ll give you a hint,” he said, “there’s a deep and a superficial.” We named the sural nerve and iliotibialis band and the great saphenous vein. As we clamored around the table, I suddenly thought of the Rembrandt painting: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.
You’re Not a Bold, Knowledgeable Medical Student — You’re Just White
I knew I moved through these spaces easily for many reasons, but being White is a big one that needs to be said out loud. And when you look and feel more comfortable in a space, it is easier to perform “well,” or to sound confident. This is directly related to what academic medicine characterizes as “objective” evaluations of students, and there is data to support this.
So-So
“I still feel the same,” she says / after three weeks of ECT. / Monday / Wednesday / Friday —
My First Stitch
“Could you please hand Eric the needle driver?” As the scrub tech loaded up that blessed golden tool, I knew that I had just ascended within the realm of surgery.
Riddle
It does not grace your ears, / but you can hear it. / It does not touch your skin, / but you feel its pull. / It can’t be seen or read / but nonetheless, it guides you.
Restrained
I proposed a deal to my fellow student on our surgery rotation. “You can have all the other cases today if I get the laryngectomy.”
Having Your Pathology and Eating It Too
Just as our vernacular has embraced the language of food to describe people, so too has the medical community used such language to describe disease.
Two Summers Abroad
I never expected to have such a similar experience of being immersed in a new language while remaining in the US exactly five years after my summer in France. But the hospital is truly a world of its own, complete with its own vocabulary.
Contributing Writer
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Kathryn Norman is a fourth-year medical student at University of Massachusetts Medical School class of 2021. She received her Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Harvard University in 2015. Before starting medical school, she worked as a CDC Public Health Associate in Modesto, CA, where she discovered her love for both local health policy and hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains.