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.”
Tag: cancer
Contributing Writer
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Madeline is a member of the Class of 2021 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She received her BA in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2014 and MMSc in Immunology from Harvard Medical School in 2017. Her primary literary interest is short narratives, and she enjoys being outside and sending snail mail in her free time.
Two Beds
Motionless, a man awakes from his stupor of heart. Relief from sharpness, the pooling and swelling.
Insight from a Then Cancer Survivor, Now a Medical Student
When I was told I had a mass in my chest, I was shocked. Like most people who are told that they have cancer, I was blindsided. But it was even more shocking because I had been going to multiple doctors over a period of six months complaining of pain in my chest, right arm, and right shoulder.
Tiger, Coco, Bella and Daisy
You tell me you’d like to be an engineer one day. You hesitate after the words “one day,” like you’re reconsidering the phrase. I want to tell you not to, but I can’t find the words.
6 y/o F: Patient Perspective of Illness
mom, what’s loo-skeem-ya? / oh okay — does that mean I’m loo-skeem-ya?
Nose
I take a deep breath / to calm myself / before walking into the storm / of OR shadowing.
The Patient In Room Four
I prepared myself to discuss lab results and dietary counseling. But then my eyes stumbled upon the words on my screen that seemed to be staring back at me: ‘Lung cancer, metastatic to the bone.’
An Encounter Cut Short: A Lifelong Lesson
I was starting my surgery rotation, the second rotation of my third year, on the colorectal service. It was my first 24-hour on-call shift, which meant that my team would be responsible for multiple surgical services overnight.
Inside the Body, Inside the Mind: What Surgery Taught Me About Psychiatry
Perhaps the single most awkward conversation that a third-year medical student can have with an attending physician is the one that begins with the attending asking, “So, what medical specialty are you interested in going into?”
A Crab in the Swell
I float in an ocean of sterile cerulean. / In this deep of drapery and gowns, / One could swim out and never see the shore.
An Oath To Cancer
I wage war on you for you have let my eyes see; / I respect you, for you hold true to your decree. / But, I fight for those who lost purpose to your creed.
Ensconced in His Throne Upon the Sea
I strode down hallways, winding ‘round to meet / A sailor old and take to him his meal. / A gentle bounce in every step on beat, / This home to many always builds my zeal.
Columnist, Medical Student Editor and Former Managing Editor (2017-2018)
OU-TU School of Community Medicine
Ashten Duncan is a third-year medical student at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A 2018-2019 Albert Schweitzer Fellow, he recently received his Master of Public Health (MPH) with an interdisciplinary focus from the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health. Ashten attended the University of Oklahoma for his undergraduate program, completing a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Microbiology and minors in Chemistry and French. An aspiring family physician, Ashten is currently on a National Health Service Corps scholarship. His research interests include hope theory, burnout in medical education, and positive psychology in vulnerable populations. Ashten is passionate about creative writing and what it represents. He has written pieces that have been published on KevinMD.com and in-Training.org and in Blood and Thunder and The Practical Playbook. Ashten is currently serving as Associate Author for the upcoming edition of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1.
The Lived Experience
As medical students, we sometimes lose sight of our purpose for going into medicine and feel that we are exerting ourselves excessively with little feedback from our environment. It is important that we remember that, while we are living through the experiences that come with our training, our future patients are also living through their own experiences. The focus of this column is to examine topics in positive psychology, lifestyle medicine, public health and other areas and reflect on how these topics relate to medical students, physicians and patients alike.