Contributing Writer
Tufts University School of Medicine
Zoë is an MD/MPH student at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts class of 2025. In 2018, she graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in public health and the history of medicine. She enjoys baking bread, doing yoga, and reading novels in her free time. After graduating medical school, Zoë would like to pursue a career in internal medicine, working at the intersection of medicine and public health to address the impact of the climate crisis on health.
Waiting in the snow for the 43, Mind focused on the cold. The bitter wind, the bus kneeling Propelled me into the warm blue and yellow interior But the driver told me Wait, I let the elderly off first And I waited, Thanked her for her thoughtfulness, Shared the weather sentiment, And sat. My husband won’t turn up the heat at home, she said. But I’ve always been cold. I caught her eye …
Going into my third year of medical school, my goals were simple: survive and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. My first clerkship was surgery, and what a chaotic start it was. I often felt like a burden on my team. I knew nothing and asked the exhausted, busy residents a lot of questions. I was a walking ball of anxiety those first four weeks: How many questions was too many? …
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.
I placed the first pill on my tongue, opened my mouth so the nurse could see, closed my mouth, swallowed the pill, and opened my mouth again so the nurse could confirm that I had swallowed it. I had to repeat this for nine more tablets and this drill continued for seven days a week and for seven more months of the treatment.
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.
The once-sterile hospital room had become a sacred space, where the raw emotions of love and loss hung in the air. The young daughter, vibrant in her essence but tethered to life support, teetered on the precipice between existence and the inevitable.
“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.”
Skepticism of health care is widespread throughout some of these communities — rightly so due to historical mistreatment, discrimination and lack of representation along with cultural differences. This distrust may be further strengthened by a patient’s own personal experiences. I respected this wariness, but I had yet to witness it firsthand.
“James” handed me a new tube of toothpaste, the box a familiar green and white. Even without opening it up, I could already smell and taste the “jook-yum” (bamboo salt) I grew up with at my parent’s house.
I was assigned to complete my family medicine clerkship at Sanitas Medical Center, a primary and urgent care site in Miami, Florida that serves a large and diverse population. Most patients are elderly, Spanish speaking immigrants from Latin American countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia.
Alone in her chart stands a telehealth appointment from seven weeks ago. June disclosed a positive at-home pregnancy test. She asked about establishing care and family planning options. Just as I notice her three prior cancellations, her name flashes: Arrived.
I wasn’t expecting the morning report. / I wasn’t expecting to see images, / The death, the blood, the open eyes, / the open hands grasping at someone / long gone. Bullets buried deep.
Contributing Writer
UT McGovern Medical School
Emma is a medical student at the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston, TX, after graduating with a degree in English from Rhodes College. In her free time, she enjoys reading (and re-reading!), finding answers to questions no one asked and bemoaning the state of noise pollution. After graduating medical school, Emma will let you know what kind of physician she'd like to be.
