Pre-Medical Guest Writer
Tulane University
An undergraduate senior based in New Orleans, Hanan Rimawi studies neuroscience and public health. She and a few friends started a running project at Tulane called Bridging Generations to foster connection between the young and old.
“That’s rubbish.” My new friend — I’ll call her Sylvia — lay supine on her bed, staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling. White bedsheets swathed her long, gaunt limbs, and her sickly pallor startled me.
“Knife.” One of the surgical nurses slapped it into his hand, and Dr. James drew the scalpel quickly down the woman’s betadine-covered belly. So little fanfare preceded that moment that I almost missed it.
Sometimes the best intervention is not a medication but rather a listening ear, not a vaccination but rather a shoulder to cry on, not a screening test, but instead an advocate.
Dan and I mimicked ducklings as we followed our senior resident, Tassia, single file down the stairs on our way back to the resident room. As we neared the bottom, we crossed paths with another medicine resident leading two medical students playing the same roles as Dan and I.
It was a Wednesday morning. The air was crisp. The sun graced us with brilliance. I made my way to the emergency room where I was working for a two-week period on the cardiology consult service.
In 2006, Daisy Goodman first experienced a patient disclosing a narcotics addiction. A certified nurse midwife working in obstetrics, Goodman had had years of experience working with pregnant mothers to cultivate a healthy pregnancy and birth.
I found them for you. / Your blonde little girls who grew into women / Then grew apart from you. / I found them.
As another ACA repeal looms in the near future — after ACHA and BCRA — the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (Graham-Cassidy) legislation makes me think back to a patient I took care of a few months ago.
I don’t really know why I stayed with you. All I know is that I could not leave.
The day before I was asked to give this speech, sometime mid-May, I was speaking with a first year student. At the time, I was two weeks shy of completing my third year of medical school — the year of school that you spend the most time in the hospital.
At 7:21 p.m., I arrive at the hospital for the first overnight shift of my medical career. It’s not a great start — the bus was late, and I didn’t sleep nearly enough this afternoon in preparation for the night ahead.
Yellow does not mean sunshine, nor lemons. / Definitely not daffodils, nor sharp, new Number 2’s. / Yellow means sick. Dirty. Dangerous.
Contributing Writer
Mayo Clinic School of Medicine
Nia Sathiamoorthi is a fourth-year medical student at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and majored in science journalism and pharmacology. Her time there cultivated her love for Badger sports, cheese, and science journalism.
