Contributing Writer
Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi
Ayesha is a graduate of Karachi Medical and Dental College, Karachi, Pakistan from the batch of 2015. She is now working as a full time faculty at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi as a Family Physician; also the institute where she did her residency training in 2022. She enjoys writing, painting and poetry. She has an interest in reflective writing and medical education.
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” ‘The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost. ‘The Road not Taken’ is a poem by Robert Frost, where he talks about the impact of making different choices. The poem has stuck with me as I believe it resonates with my choice to specialize in family medicine – unknown to more than half of …
This was my patient. I sat with her, held her hand, coaxed her to share pieces of her life story from underneath the covers.
“Could you water my plants?” I asked my roommate when I was out of town. They say it takes a village to raise a child, make it through medical school, to do anything worth knowing. When I started medical school, I had a village: parents, friends, family, a partner and my plants.
I do not know what to say or feel when I first meet you. My first instinct is to introduce myself, but you can neither hear me nor reply.
During my family medicine clerkship in medical school, I worked with a free mobile primary care clinic dedicated to serving uninsured patients. Parked outside a church in a large city, the clinic was a large blue bus standing in stark contrast to the gray asphalt parking lot around it.
As you search your closet / For your scrub cap, / Stethoscope, / And pants,
On September 29, 2021, my world started to unravel. My first anatomy lab as a medical student had just begun. I stepped foot in the cadaver lab where the pungent odor of formaldehyde clung to the air, and I was overflowing with eagerness.
As we got closer to the ED, the excitement evolved into a feeling of discomfort. It was uncomfortable to feel even briefly excited by another person’s misfortune. I felt a sense of disequilibrium as I realized I had strayed from the delicate balance medical students and physicians continually try to find.
I first wrote to author George Saunders in my senior year of high school. Thankful for everything his writing taught me about empathy, I sought advice as I crossed the “seemingly arbitrary line into adulthood.”
“254?!” I gawk at the glucometer, stunned that Tom’s blood sugar has soared to such heights when it has consistently remained below 125 for the last two weeks. Tom glances up at me with an amused look on his face, clearly entertained by my reaction — “It was probably that pork chop that did it.”
My first time in the operating room (OR) was when I was a junior in college. I was beaming under my mask, so excited to shadow and observe my first surgery ever, a riveting and exotic procedure: a planned and standard laparoscopic cholecystectomy. A friendly circulating nurse that I had been chatting with asked me, “Sabrina, what’s your glove size?”
After spending nearly a lifetime as a Type A perfectionist who struggled with developing new skills, I had spent the last several years trying to adopt a policy of “practice makes progress.” I have learned to accept the fact that being bad at something is often the first step towards being good at it.
Contributing Writer
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
Marissa is a medical student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Elmira, NY, Class of 2024. In 2017, she graduated from Stony Brook University with a Bachelor of Science in health science. In 2019, she graduated from Stony Brook University with a Master of Science in physiology and biophysics and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in disability studies. She enjoys nature photography and long walks with her dogs. After graduating medical school, Marissa would like to pursue a career in pediatrics.
