Ten years ago I arrived in Loma Linda, California and attempted to meet the three other naïve souls in my MD/PhD program, only to discover every last one of them was cool enough to have homes outside of the United States. Today, the final member of our tetrad crossed the stage to receive her second […]
I collected the invitations To events I had missed: Weddings, showers, parties All unattended, reply cards unsent. Their photos covered my wall.
Graduation. An event that had been so far off for so long, my dazed mind refused to believe it could actually be happening. And yet, here it was, a weekend of visitors and ceremonies and celebrations swirling around me in a blur of regalia and purple orchid leis. As with everything else in this eight-year […]
A while back my school gave us a pre-graduation checklist of sorts that required students to travel around campus on a “signature scavenger hunt” so that representatives of various departments could sign a single, increasingly valuable piece of paper. Some of them were easy (turn in your scrub machine card, return locker keys), while others […]
Ms. A was brought in from a nursing facility by the transport team my first week of ICU rotation. I had no idea what I was doing and my first thought was, “she looks old, I hope she doesn’t code before someone else gets here.” She was around 95 years old and had the kind […]
I’m back in Ohio, this time for ICU rotation, and the week got off to a rough start beginning with the landing. On the first day I showed up naked; that is to say, without my phone, which really got in the way of storing my new coworkers’ numbers for future communication as I stumbled […]
Game news dominated my Facebook feed on Friday night, when, after years of “up and coming” status, my alma mater UMBC secured a place in history by knocking out UVA in March Madness. If, like my med school colleagues, you managed to miss what will likely be the biggest sportsball upset of the year, the Retrievers […]