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Bren Franke

Critical reflective writing holds a prominent place in the Medical Humanities curriculum at Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Beginning in the first semester of Medical Ethics, students engage in critical reflection to explore their own assumptions and biases and how their values impact their practice. This submission is selected and edited by Nicole Michels, PhD, chair of the Department of Medical Humanities, and Alexis Horst, MA, writing center instructor.

Bren Franke (he/they) is a first-year medical student at Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Parker, Colo. Bren was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minn., and completed their bachelor’s degree at University of Wisconsin River Falls. As a first-year student, Bren has yet to narrow down any specialty interests but wants to focus on improving medical care for underserved minorities. Outside of medicine, Bren enjoys playing hockey, writing poetry, and rollerblading.

During the first two months of medical school, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I put my shoes on the wrong feet most days. I experienced a whirlwind of emotions ranging from homesickness to disappointment to pure joy. Every second-year medical student warned the incoming first-year students about most of the feelings I experienced, so I was expecting them and did not feel so alone. But there was one experience I found difficult to process that nobody really talked about. It’s understandable that at our white coat ceremony, the student speaker didn’t get up in front of everyone and talk about what emotions arose for them when dissecting a human body, a cadaver, and how they processed those emotions. Maybe some (or most) medical students don’t react intensely to the cadavers in anatomy lab; maybe it is not their first time. The strong emotions that arose for me during my first cadaver dissection took me by surprise.

When I walked into my first day of anatomy lab, I felt nervous but excited. I remember the strong smell of preservatives seeped through my mask, overwhelming my nose (which I got used to eventually). I shivered as I put on my lab coat, the cold air escaping the vents above me. I was assigned tank 14, which was what my donor (cadaver) was now known as. All we know about each donor is the cause of death and age; everything else is kept anonymous. I met my lab partners, and after a moment of silence for the donors, we began the dissection. I was eager to start, and I felt like this was a crucial moment in becoming a physician: my first day of anatomy lab. With all the nerves, excitement, and stress of the first two dissections, I was not able to relax enough to think of anything more than the task at hand. Once I got more comfortable with my groupmates and dissection, my mind would start to wander during lab. Who is the person in front of me? Is someone missing them? Why did they decide to donate their body to science? What was their life like? This person’s entire physical form is in front of me, but could there be a nonphysical part of them that persists, a soul of sorts?

Your body in front of me structures uncovered But where is your soul?

I can’t help but wonder Were you someone’s mother? Your body in front of me

In your forever slumber

Known as the fourteenth number

But where is your soul?

You’ve given me an opportunity

So unique and extraordinary

Your body in front of me

It is an abstrusity

To build up immunity

But where is your soul?

No effect on me

I thought so obtusely

Your body in front of me

But where is your soul?

I am not religious, and I never grew up thinking of an afterlife, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about what really happens to us after we die –and not just to our physical bodies. Over many hours in anatomy lab, I began to appreciate the human body even more than I thought I could. We are so intricate and delicate, yet tough and resilient. There must be more than this.

I understand that I am not the first person to feel that there must be more than the physical. I know this is not a groundbreaking thought. After all, the basis of all religions is that there is something more to life than what we can perceive through our five physical senses, but this was and still is a new feeling for me. This thought might be comforting for most people, but I had a hard time adjusting to this sentiment. It wasn’t scary or sad or anything like that, but it was such an intense feeling.

I am now six months into my medical education and still exploring this concept, mostly through poetry. I have always used poetry to reflect on my life and analyze my experiences, and medical school is no exception. I do find writing about medical school and this process most interesting though, because what we learn in medical school seems to be so structured. Things are black and white. Through poetry, I can grapple with the gray area where medicine intersects with the human experience. I am still overcome with similar intense feelings about human life and spirituality during anatomy lab (and outside of it), but whereas before I felt ambivalent, I am now comforted by the overwhelming feeling that human life has a larger purpose. ■