Samantha Barkan is a third year medical student at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, FL class of 2025. In 2019, she graduated from Macalester College with a Bachelor of Arts in biology. She enjoys long walks, reading, and trying new food and restaurants in her free time. After graduating medical school, Samantha would like to pursue a career in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Fluorescent lighting, lemon-scented cleaner and recently mopped tile floors. The sights and smells of a hospital floor were slowly becoming familiar to me as I wound my way around corner after corner bright and early at 6:15 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
During my family medicine rotation, I experienced one of my most memorable patient encounters. Accompanied by her daughter, my patient came for her annual physical with her primary care physician. Approaching them with a mixture of anticipation and nervousness , I couldn’t help but notice the genuine happiness radiating from both of them.
A fog of emotions blankets the waiting room / Stress and anxiety, with some impending doom.
If someone asks me how my first year of medical school went, half of the time I dismiss them with a one-word answer, saving them from a conversation they aren’t ready to have. The other half of the time, I tell the truth, just to see what they have to say.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdown precipitated wide-ranging effects on nearly all aspects of our society. Perhaps some of the most severely affected patients were those fighting cancer. These patients have little physiologic resistance to COVID-19 and accordingly experience higher morbidity and mortality when infected.
You call me on a Thursday to tell me / You were diagnosed with leukemia in October.
I commented to the resident how satisfied the attending would be with the efficiency of his work. He just laughed and said “look” as he gestured down to his list of patients. I saw the name, and a sense of dread sank in during the rest of the silent walk down the hall.
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.”
Motionless, a man awakes from his stupor of heart. Relief from sharpness, the pooling and swelling.
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.
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.
mom, what’s loo-skeem-ya? / oh okay — does that mean I’m loo-skeem-ya?
Contributing Writer
Stanford University School of Medicine
Vivian is a second year medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, CA Class of 2022. In 2017, she graduated from Stanford with a Bachelor of Arts in human biology with a concentration in global health and development. She then pursued a Fulbright in Uganda working on maternal and child health. She enjoys swing dancing, writing, and creating music in her free time. In the future, Vivian would like to pursue a career in psychiatry.
