The Worth of the Humanities
Ruchica Chandnani, Class of 2024 at the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, contributes this poem as an in-Training writer and current managing editor of the publication since 2021.
Tag: poetry
Managing Editor and Contributing Writer
Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine
Ruchica Chandnani is a second year medical student at the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Smith, Arkansas. In 2019, she graduated from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor with a Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and a minor in Asian Languages and Culture. In her spare time, she likes watching cartoons and anime, writing, eating sweet and spicy food, and traveling (esp. solo traveling). Ruchica hopes to pursue a career in Psychiatry or Neurology and become an advocate for victims of trauma.
The First Physical
General: / Patient is in NAD, / except for being awoken at 7 a.m. by someone he has never met
Gynecologic Oncology Surgeons: Normal-Sized Giants
Bleary-eyed, / Surgical cap awry, / I follow in a single file line.
Intubate
Medical student, why don’t you intubate? / The OR is safe, it’ll go great.
Shortcomings of a Sanctuary
In the hospital lobby, three police officers / surrounded a woman in an oversized, white T-shirt, / sitting in a corner chair that nearly swallowed her whole, / enveloping her in its dull, floral pattern.
Death Is No Crime
Why — why did you die? / Your soul took to the sky / without a conscious goodbye
My Reflection (and Infinitely Beyond)
The quaternary code, the winding staircase / of you, incommensurate in its beauty.
Escape
The child’s restful sleep is lost / To the hisses of serpents and other seditious demons
Calmly Collected
My relaxed reveal / faked a fool / while tanking time / with failing fuel.
The Imposter
Comparison is the enemy / The future seems bleak / Look left, look right
Blood Draw
Unsheathe a hollow spear and spill from ephemeral streams of blue. / Hold it against me only for a moment to let my skin seize against the cold steel.
To Hope, Intrepid
On a search for / assurance, / I was sat across / the Intrepid
Writer-in-Training
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Eshiemomoh Osilama is a second-year medical student at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton, PA class of 2024. He graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in biology. He enjoys reading and writing poetry, baking, theater, singing, museums, traveling, beaches and oceans, photography, and being an extraordinary guncle.
