5:37 a.m. in hospital scrubs;
Just a few minutes with each patient.
The thought echoes
Like my footsteps in the stairwell:
Just a few minutes before 6 a.m. rounds.
Good morning sir, I hear myself say.
I’m just going to take a listen.
I reach to my neck,
My memory skips back to the lounge
To my stethoscope hanging by the door.
Well it all sounded fine yesterday.
Shortness of breath? No.
Chest pain? Palpitations? No.
Well it all sounded fine yesterday.
Just a few minutes before 6:00 am rounds.
Physical exam, unchanged, I hear myself say.
And then these fingers type out a note:
RRR, CTA b/l.
And just like that
A body copied forward.
Impostor, repeats
Louder than the constant saline BEEP
Feeling like a burr hole inside my own head.
And my memory skips to that eager student
A naïvety which never questioned integrity.
And just like that saline drip,
The noise fades
Blurred into a dizzy oblivion:
Walking steps I never remembered
Past lives I’ll sooner forget.
Poetry Thursdays is an initiative that highlights poems by medical students and physicians. If you are interested in contributing or would like to learn more, please contact our editors.
Contributing Writer
George Washington University School of Medicine
Amira Athanasios is fourth year medical student at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. In 2015, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Scripps College in Claremont, California. She is passionate about the intersections of health, culture, religion, and humanities. After medical school, she hopes to pursue a career in child and adolescent psychiatry.