Contributing Writer
University of Florida College of Medicine
Dionne Blake is a third-year combined medical and Master of Public Health student at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida class of 2024. In 2020, she graduated from the University of Florida as part of the Medical Honors Program with a Bachelor of Science in biological and medical sciences. She enjoys reading, drawing, and spending time with friends in her free time. After graduating medical school, Dionne would like to pursue a career combining medicine and public health.
My health deteriorated as I started my second year in medical school. I suffered from intense nausea and abdominal pain, only getting four or five consistent hours of sleep per day. These health issues had started and worsened during the second year, eventually culminating in an emergency cholecystectomy.
Like many medical students, I was vastly underprepared for the emotional turmoil that the nature of the third year of medical school can create.
Awareness of mental health and burnout concerns amongst physicians is simply insufficient; there is a dearth in actionable guidelines for training programs and medical schools to better medical student wellbeing.
The interviewer smiled, gave a vague answer and followed it with a diatribe about how present-day residents have it so “easy.” How his generation had to “walk through feet and feet of snow” to get to work and how work hour restrictions did not exist. Caught off guard, I wondered what sparked such an emotional response to a common interview question.
Blue, white, red, yellow, pink, brown. These are the colors of the ties and strips of fabric around the scrub pants and tops indicating their size. At the start of medical school, I would squeeze into a red top and red pants: these were the larges.
My sister is nine years older than I am. We went to different high schools and currently live over 500 miles apart.
In early spring, amid the earlier quarantines, I watched dandelions grow outside my window. At first, subtly and hidden among the blades of grass. Then budding, bursting yellow amid green galaxies. These tiny suns danced in April’s wind and their scent carried morning’s dew and earth-like warmth into midday, until the smells of grills and barbecues took stage.
This work is about vulnerability and the feeling of being vulnerable. There is a special exposure to vulnerability for everyone who is taking part in healthcare systems, be it of course as a patient who potentially suffers restrictions in their physical and/or psychic integrity trough illness or also the caregivers who are under pressure to be attentive, know the right things, act and speak properly all the time.
I wanted to create this piece as a reminder to myself and all medical students: to take a breath, to breathe. Oftentimes we forget to find beauty in everyday life, since we are all so involved in our bustling workdays. We forget to take a pause during the day, to inhale and exhale with intention.
I created this piece for a friend who wanted to gift it to their friend. I find that art is able to connect people from all cultures and backgrounds, which is why I love creating my pieces and gifting them. We don’t often times need words to convey art, which is why I enjoy visual pieces as I myself am not great with words.
I created this piece as a gift to a dear friend of mine. It serves as a reminder to me to always be grateful for friendship and family. Yin and Yang describes how obviously contrary forces may in actuality have complementary effects on one another.
I was deep into my pre-clinical courses as a first-year medical student and struggling to carve out time for the other things I loved in this world, like hiking. This image was taken on a hike on one chilly October day when I finally managed to get away and hike a local trail.
Contributing Writer
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Salma is a second-year medical student at Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Buffalo, NY class of 2024. In 2018, she graduated from State of University of New York at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in biomedical sciences. She enjoys photography, instructing fitness classes, and cooking in her free time.
