Forthousands of people living in northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) during the 19th and 20th centuries, coal was precious. It was the black diamond they mined and the substance that supported their lives. Formed in ancient times under the massive pressure of the sediment above it, coal became the foundation of an entire economy in NEPA. That economy has all but vanished from this part of the country, but today, NEPA is witnessing the formation of a new and valuable resource. Created under the pressure of a great need for future physicians, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine now exists. New students are coming in to NEPA every year to begin the process of being transformed into physicians through the steady, constant pressures of medical school. And like the rich veins of coal that extended through the region, these future physicians are now stretched across counties in northeastern and central Pennsylvania. For many of these students and their teachers, the arts are an important part of life outside of medicine. Our hope is that this journal can serve as a showcase for their expression and be an inspiration to those who read it.
Zachary Wolfe, MD MD Class of 2015
introduction: a balm and a spark 5 cobblestone on poplar 6 mooretown road, sweet valley 7 everything must go 8-11 larry, king of the wild12 scorpion embroidery 13 our fathers 14-15 hidden among the flowers 16
The Enchanted Sunrise of Interlaken: A Tale of Morning Magic 17 the burden of knowledge 18-19 fenwick island reimagined 20-21 betadine and blood 22 lights of the night 23 The contagion of life 24 spiritual reflection 25 borrowed home 26 mystical iceland 27 iceland's geothermic wonder 28 hope 29 my three trees 30 the winged wanderer 31 The park 32-33 antiquity 34 kilmainham gaol 35 habe ich geschwiegen 36 maintenance station 37
belonging 38 the majestic jesuit church of lucerne: a serene blend of history and beauty by the tranquil waters of lake lucerne 39 hispanic 40 LEGACY 41 behind the veil 42 the black diamond 43 fields of tea 44 vertical echos: city in motion 45 the night market 46-51 a tranquil journey on lake lucerne 52 thriving in harmony 53 parking lot nap 54 medical mural 55 the girl with hair like fruit 56-58 adrift & moody; misty harbor 59 Fenwick island reimagined 60-61 sonnet (on experiencing death in the ICU) 62 remnants 63 serenity 64 my silent stethoscope 65 m1s at voodoo 66 a new dawn 67 purple joy 68 midnight vigil 69 a scranton september 70
introduction: A Balm and a spark
Amanda Caleb, PhD, MPH Editor-in-chief
Poet, educator and justice activist César A. Cruz once said, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Art is both a balm and a spark. It heals, but it also ignites. It soothes and it unsettles. It holds space for pain, and it pushes us toward progress. Art offers refuge to those in pain, giving voice to the unheard and visibility to the unseen. At the same time, it challenges dominant narratives and epistemologies, shedding light on injustice, awakening emotions and stirring us to action.
In this issue of Black Diamonds, we explore this dual power of creative expression: to hold space for pain and suffering and to provoke necessary discomfort. The works collected here do not shy away from complexity. They lean into it. They ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and
illuminate the quiet corners of human experience that often go unseen. At the same time, they offer moments of comfort — glimpses of beauty, resilience, and connection that remind us we are not alone. They remind us that art is not passive — it is alive, and it asks something of us in return.
The Black Diamonds editorial board invites you to read with openness. Let yourself be moved and comforted. Let yourself be challenged. Let this issue be a space where art becomes more than expression—it becomes expansion. A space where healing and reckoning coexist. A space where you might find, in equal measure, comfort and disruption. Because art, at its best, doesn’t just speak — it listens, it provokes, it transforms. We hope you are transformed.
Jacob Kornilow
on poplar
MD Class of 2027
A photo of one of the last cobblestone streets in Scranton. A subtle reminder of the roads of the past that carried us to the present.
cobblestone
Mooretown Road, Sweet Valley iris johnston senior library specialist I tried to capture the eerie yet familiar/cozy feeling of my childhood babysitter's farm.
Everything Must Go
iris johnston senior library specialist
Two women in their late twenties stood at the brink of darkness, dressed in jeans and least-loved shirts. One featured a bongo-playing llama. The other was the color of ballpark mustard and read ASK ME; I MIGHT. The darkness was a basement. The shirts were about to get filthy.
“Watch your step,” Ella reached back to her friend as they gingerly picked their way through the darkness, “There’s cruft and mouse poop everywhere.”
“Cruft and the Mouse Poops: good band name.”
Penny and Ella made it to the center of the room, and Ella used her flashlight while her taller friend reached up to the bare light fixture. A quick twist of a fresh bulb, and the basement’s ochre shadows burst into chartreuse.
“Augh!” Penny winced, “Looked right at the bulb!”
“Well don’t do that,” Ella gently chided and pointed to a far corner, blocked by detritus,
“now, that’s the walkout-”
“Insert joke about rear entrance-”
“ - and the dumpster is right out there next to it.”
“Oh good, no hauling stuff up the stairs.”
“Right! And John already confirmed the door works, so if
we clear a path, we can go right through it and throw stuff in the dumpster.” Ella turned towards a workbench cluttered with lumps of grey nothing. She set down a box of garbage bags, pulled one out, and unfluffed it with a snap.
“If you find anything gross,” Ella stuck both hands inside the bag, “just do like this right? Scoop it up, and then pull the bag inside out. So we won’t get our gloves dirty.”
“What kind of gross stuff am I going to find?”
“John found a dead snake on the stairs, so, like…? And there’s like a,” she inhaled deeply, “Like a rotten butter smell? I don’t know what that means.”
“I don’t know what rotten butter smells like,” Penny gave a series of canine sniffs, “Oh, no, yeah I know what you’re talking about. Oh that’s weird! It smells like a wet foot.”
“So if you find a wet foot, pick it up with a garbage bag and don’t get your gloves dirty.”
Like many older houses in the Susquehanna Valley, Ella and her husband’s new home had been built with coal heating. Previous owners converted to natural gas but kept the giant, red-enameled coal stove. The matching red hopper was full, as if the previous owners had converted to natural gas on a whim, without running down their last load. Then again, where does one put a barrel full of coal chips? Might as well leave it where it is. Perhaps the basement was in disarray even then, when they converted to gas. The myth
of the immaculate midcentury home is one you can enjoy only through magazines, not memories. There were hoarders in every era. Probably even cavemen could go be messy. Never cleaning up their rocks.
Thinking this, Penny asked, “are we going to deal with this, uh, big drum thing that’s full of coal?”
“Everything must go!” Ella did a little two-step flourish and doffed an imaginary cap.
“There are a bunch of boxes full of clothes but they’re all mildewy, they can’t be donated. And if something looks useful, Penny, I’m serious, you cannot let John see it! We found a coffee can full of rusted keys-”
“Keys?”
“Rusted into a lump, and he said, ‘I could make a cool paperweight out of these,’ I said not on your life! Don’t give him any ideas that there’s something down here we want to keep. Just get it out.”
“Everything. Got it.”
The morning passed in a flurry of flapping garbage bags and occasional remarks as to the function or provenance of items. A few things were mysterious, like a metal box with a pipe on one side and a crank on the other. Turn the crank and something turned inside the box. It might have been part of a toy, or even an inventor’s prototype, but any charm was hidden under grime and rust. Twice Penny heard movement within a pile, somewhere deep in the layers of discarded stuff, and twice she thought Nope. I’m ignoring that. By early afternoon there were three empty boxes of garbage bags stacked on the no-longer-cluttered, now-pristine workbench. A narrow path lined with bulging bags lead to the walkout, which opened smoothly. Progress! Ella exited with a triumphant crow and declared it lunchtime.
“Just let me stretch my back,” Penny laid flat in the grass, the second half of her sandwich still in one hand.
“Laying down on the job.”
“No this actually feels really good, though, come stretch.”
Ella joined her friend and held her phone up for a selfie, “Wow that is… That is not a flattering angle! For me, anyway. Okay, nevermind. This moment will go unrecorded.”
They stretched. A minute passed.
“Speaking of unrecorded…”
Penny, squinting from the sun, looked over, “yeah?”
“Actually I don’t have a sequitur for that. But you said it feels good to stretch. Are you still sore? You know, from…?”
Penny tensed, scowled. “No,” she said. “It’s not like I had surgery.”
“They say it can be painful, that’s all.”
“It was like getting my period. Exactly like that.” Now Penny was up and on her feet, hurrying back into the basement. “Time to get back to work!”
Ella trotted in behind her, leaving the door open so light poured in.
“Penny, if I said something wrong, I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business. But you’re my friend and I love you. I just want to know how you feel about all of this.”
“I feel like whatever smells like a foot is under those newspapers, and I’m going to find it and throw it in a bag.”
The awkward tension eased up as space opened up with each pair of garbage bags trotted out and tossed in the dumpster. The piles of Reader's Digest, the broken mugs, the hideous and hideously filthy lamps and chairs and plywood bedframes. These things might be wanted by someone else, but there was no “someone else.” They belonged to Ella, and she wanted them gone.
Eventually Penny came back in from the dumpster and found her friend standing in front of the furnace, hands on her hips in a defiant pose. She
nudged the coal hopper with a sneaker, then gently kicked it. It was the shape of a 55-gallon drum but bigger, as high as her ribcage, with three feet of chips heaped inside. The kick did nothing.
“I found the thing that smells like a foot,” Ella said, her voice flattened by fatigue.
“You’re kidding.”
“And it’s not a foot. It’s cat shit. This is basically a giant litter box.”
“Litter barrel.” Penny approached, confirmed the source of the smell, “Wait, okay, this is probably bolted to the floor.”
“No. It’s just set on a piece of wood.”
“We can’t lift it. Couldn’t you, like, cover it in baking soda or something? Potpourri?”
Penny asked, but Ella made a face. “Okay, okay. What about hiring someone to deal with it? Haul out the furnace and this thing at once.”
“The furnace, I don’t care about moving that, we’ll shine it up and it’ll look cool, but this can’t stay.”
“Can we, like, shovel the coal out a bit at a time? Or, no, the coal will probably tear through the bags. There’s no other way.”
They realized in unison: “We have to move the whole thing.”
Without warning Penny dipped into a low squat and pressed her whole chest against the full hopper. A shove, and the hopper hulked forward like a zombie. Another shove, another forward step. “You know,” she said, almost to herself, “I don’t regret it.”
“Can I help?” Ella asked, but Penny wrapped her arms around the hopper.
“No, I got it,” shove, step, pause. Shove, step, pause. “I’m not sorry I did it. That’s not why I’m upset.”
Quietly, Ella asked, “Did you even tell Logan you were pregnant?”
Penny grunted and rolled her eyes.
“No!” Shove. Pause. “No, but I’ll tell you what, he’s a broken record about how much he doesn’t want kids.” Shove. Pause. “Logan’s an idiot, he doesn’t even have up-to-date inspection on his car.”
The hopper scraped an angry whine on the concrete floor with each shove.
“And he’s always late.”
“And he’s always late! He’s more late the more important it is! I’m supposed to have a baby with a guy who forgets to walk the dog when his roommate is away? That’s insane.”
Ella crouched beside her friend. The sharp, oily stink of coal went right up her nose, making her crinkle her face and gasp.
“Wow, this is way heavier than I thought.”
“Right? I thought it would be like nothing, but it’s so dense.”
“On three, okay? One, two…”
Combined, they were strong enough to push the hopper in a ceaseless movement that was not exactly smooth, and sounded like a prolonged car crash, but nevertheless progressed until they hit the high sill of the doorway.
“I think we can — ” they braced themselves. Took deep breaths. Shoved. Nothing. “Why is there a step here anyway?”
“It’s called a door sill, I think it keeps critters out.”
“Well why’s the stupid thing have to be so big?! Ella I’m sorry but I think this lives here now. You don’t really need to use this door, do you?
“Wait, if we push just against the right side,” she encouraged, “the left
side will lift up, and then we can edge it onto the sill.”
They braced, they pushed, the hopper rolled and tilted. And as the base of the hopper finally touched the door sill, Penny gave a groan of deep irritation, “I. Want. A. Baby,” she growled, “But! Not! With! Him!”
The coal hopper slipped over the sill as easily as dropping a suitcase after coming home from a trip. On smooth grass now, it slid right up to the edge of the dumpster. The friends panted. Penny used the last remaining clean patch of shirt to wipe her face.
Ella looked back into the basement. What had been a pocket stuffed with furry black shadows was now a yawn of open space. The televisions and rusted keys were gone, but what was left was potential. The hope for something better.
“What now?” Penny asked Ella a moment before Ella could ask Penny.
“I… Well, I want a shower. And then I want Cracker Barrel fried chicken.”
Penny said, “I want a boyfriend who keeps his car inspected and walks his dog.”
“And who wants kids.”
“And who wants kids. Yeah. I didn’t realize that mattered to me, until…” Penny exhaled, her shoulders drooping, “Aw, man.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, I’m going to hug you, but I’m covered in cruft and mouse poops.”
It was worth it.
larry, king of the wild dianna quijano
md class of 2026
Larry is my cat and he loves the wilderness, despite being an indooronly cat. I wanted to capture his fantasy of the wild by depicting him in the trees stylized to look like stained glass you might find in a cathedral.
scorpion embroidery
iris johnston, senior library specialist
Sort of like impasto in painting, I layered stitches on top of each other to build texture and make a traditionally "scary" animal look cute.
our fathers
Ian J. McCoog, EdD, Director of Data Management
It always snows in March in Pennsylvania. When you think of winter, you might picture white Christmases and lingering snow piles in January. And those sometimes occur, but without fail, we get walloped by one good snowstorm each March just when we believe winter is over. One last blizzard rolls in from Canada or off the Atlantic coast to serve notice that Mother Nature only cedes to spring when she is damn well ready.
One particular March, I put on the trusty pair of coveralls that once belonged to my dad. I came by the forest green, insulated, zip-up, one-piece when dementia made it so that he could no longer clear snow. It had been three years since he passed away and probably close to a dozen now that I had worn my inherited protection from the cold. My dad was the local handyman. He didn’t have the manpower or equipment to be called a contractor really but he did all the little jobs that needed to be done for the people in town, things like replacing siding or resurfacing a deck. During the winter months, he wore the coveralls and his red Ford Ranger pickup truck donned a plow. We would spend hours driving around town pushing snow across parking lots and making neat piles around the edges of each. It was kind of fun and much better than being out in the wind and cold with a shovel.
The March day in question was mild for a late winter storm, maybe six inches, so knowing that I wouldn’t work too hard, I brought my phone along to play a podcast while I worked. But where to put the phone? You see, a Zero Zone Insulated Coverall by Walls has exactly six pockets. There are two in the rear. One pocket has a zipper for stuff you don’t want to lose, like the
wads of cash my dad would collect from plowing. The other, without a zipper, is for items you don’t mind dropping in the snow like your gloves while a shop owner handed him a few twenties for clearing his lot. There are two pockets in the front with slits behind them for easy access to your jeans’ pockets underneath, a real marvel of engineering. There are two small outside breast pockets with zippers. Those seemed to me like the best place to secure a 3 by 6.5 inch smartphone even though flip phones were the latest technology when these coveralls were manufactured. I unzipped the top left pocket and felt a sharp poke as I put my finger in. I pulled away quickly with an “ouch,” a small bead of blood forming on my fingertip. What the hell was that? I thought potentially to myself but also maybe out loud.
Upon inspection, I found a half dozen or so toothpicks in the pocket. Looking at those tiny splinters of wood, I was transported back to the tiny coal town where I was raised. Memories of the blizzards of 1993 and 1996 rushed my consciousness. Giant snow piles in front of our narrow row home which were great for sliding down but irritated the adults as my tiny snow-pantsed self brought down snow and slush blocking the gutters that had just cleared hoping for snow melt. During those storms, my one-square-mile town of 5,000 people could do little more than watch the snow fall. I didn’t go to school for a week. You see, my dad had chewed tobacco for a long time. I’m not entirely sure when he quit, probably around the same time he shuttered his carpentry business as the anxiety took hold that would develop into the dementia that would kill him from a mixture of increasing Xanax dosages and a diminishing but still present alcoholism. But when you quit chewing, the oral fixation doesn’t go away.
Over the years, I have met many gout or liver patients who were told by their doctors they needed to stop drinking and quickly replaced 12 beers with 12 Diet Cokes bringing on a whole host of new health problems. My dad didn’t switch from tobacco to sugar although he did always carry around red and white Starlite peppermints. Those were for an upset stomach and a product of the anxiety. He also always had on hand ammonia-smelling salts that could be broken and sniffed to ward off an especially bad panic attack. I don’t think he ever used them. For a reason I’ll never know, he began chewing on toothpicks. Meticulously shredding each thin strand of wood into smaller strands before spitting them on the ground as he would a wad of Amish (his favorite brand of side chew). The one that punctured my finger that day had to be nearly 20 years old.
The decline started with reminders scribbled on a notepad that sat on the end table nearest his recliner. Walk the dog, defrost the steaks, play the pool. In our town, play the pool meant drop your ten bucks off at the local barroom and hope your number comes up. The reminders eventually devolved into just words. Words that either made little sense out of context or nothing that you would think would need reminding. Corn, shower, money. By the time I was in high school, I would occasionally be conscripted into accompanying him around town to accomplish errands instead of going to school. That was fine by me, however, I was a bit unnerved as the frequency increased because he still pumped the gas and took 80 bucks out of the bank and purchased what he needed from the hardware store. My only purpose was to be present because he wouldn’t have been able to do those routine tasks alone.
Standing in the snow in front of my house staring at my finger, I simply smiled, sucked off the blood, and zipped up the left front pocket of the coveralls. Those toothpicks were put there by the man who is no longer around and as a memory of his presence, there they would stay. This type of thing happens more than I ever anticipated it would. I once reached into the pocket of a long-
forgotten pair of jeans to find a Starlite mint. Perhaps I picked up more of his habits than I thought. My truck (a Chevy, sorry Dad) and my briefcase (a thing my father would never even consider owning) both contain Albuterol inhalers despite me not having an asthma attack in nearly 10 years. I always swore anxiety would not do to me what it did to my father and his father before him. I travel, I speak to large crowds, I teach, I love my life, and I don’t let any personal limitations impede my children’s well-being. But it’s there. It’s always been there and probably always will. But when life tested me, I learned to cope and I learned that it’s ok to ask for help.
My dad, like so many of our fathers in rural America, died a preventable death. Sixty-seven is far too young.
hidden among the flowers erica kuo
MD Class of 2026
A rooster peaks out behind the veil of spring flowers. His red comb and black glistening feathers create a stark contrast to the white petals of the wild pear flowers.
The Enchanted Sunrise of Interlaken: A Tale of Morning Magic - MaryAnn Babinski, Administrative Assistant, Office of the Dean
A serene lakeside view of Lake Brienz in Switzerland at sunrise, with snow-capped mountains in the distance and silhouetted trees framing the tranquil scene.
the burden of knowledge
erich miller, md class of 2026
This story represents a fictional allegory of some of the unforeseen costs that come with the knowledge we obtain in medicine.
Knowledge comes with an often unforeseen burden, a true Pandora's box offering power at a price; An unappreciated lesson that became clear to Adrienne over the past few months. Adrienne Pierce, or Dr. Pierce, as his patients called him, was a gifted neurologist practicing for over two decades. His skills were honed by years of training and experience, allowing him to spot the subtlest abducens palsy, identify a faint quadriceps fasciculation, and see the signs of mild cognitive impairment. But nothing in his training prepared him for the emotional toll that would come with spotting symptoms in his spouse.
On a wintry December day, Dr. Pierce was returning home following 17 hours on the last day of his seven-day shift. He was exhausted, having managed 15 patients on the floor with only a single senior resident and a medical student. The allure of his warm bed next to his wife filled him with relaxation. The clock struck 11:30 p.m. as he pulled into his driveway, the lights to his house out, a sign that his wife had long gone to sleep. As he walked through the front door, he thought it best to change in the bathroom down the hall from his bedroom to avoid disturbing her before coming in. His home was silent, a beautiful thing on a cold wintry night that just a few hours prior had been filled with nothing but loud beeping and pages on his phone; a silence that was broken a few short moments later by the sound of his wife’s voice shouting expletives, something virtually unheard of outside of the occasional day with the motherin-law. Perplexed and concerned, he rushed up to his bedroom,
where he found his wife lying asleep, moving her arms slightly, yelling at an empty room. He roused her as she awoke in a dazed state, happy to see him after what she described as a horrible nightmare. He was taken aback as his wife had rarely ever complained of nightmares, let alone ones severe enough to present like this one. He was unsettled but so tired that he chalked it up to an isolated event on an odd night.
However, it wasn't an isolated event, as over the next few weeks, his wife continued to thrash and yell at night, on two occasions throwing herself entirely out of their bed. For weeks, he rationalized, denied, and mentally shifted around explanations, all while a sense of doubt, dread, and impending doom slowly gnawed. He pondered whether she could have had undiagnosed narcolepsy, an odd presentation of sleep apnea, or a change in her medications. Yet, every time he rationalized, his unease and doubt grew until one day, the realization he had known all along but had been avoiding broke through, running his blood cold and filling him with a sense of stress he hadn’t felt in years: she had a REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). He knew it in his heart, like a dagger through his soul. He had diagnosed many patients with it over his career as a neurologist, hearing countless stories of thrashing, expletives, yelling, and the like, giving way years down the road to further neurologic progression. His heart began to race, sweat forming at his temples as he thought of his patients with RBD who went on to develop cognitive decline, motor abnormalities, and psychiatric change as thoughts of his wife overlaid on their stories. The walls of his office closed around him, a sense of the world becoming distant as his mind
and body slipped towards a state of numbness. He knew he was panicking and needed to reign in his emotions, but he couldn't. His thoughts became an onslaught of panicked worries and catastrophic predictions. Despite having seen RBD many times, for the first time in his career, he was scared and completely uncertain of how to move forward, scared for his wife and himself.
Over the next two months, he did his best to carry out his clinical duties while working to find a solution to what seemed like an impossible problem. In every patient he treated, he saw his wife and what her life and his could one day be, blurring the lines between his and his patient’s experience. From the time he woke up in the morning until he went to sleep, his mind raced with intrusive thoughts, his mind and knowledge weaponized against him: Should I tell my wife, and even if I do, how should I? What are we going to do if she starts progressing or declines? Pushing through these thoughts and feelings, he made an attempt to tell his wife out of a feeling that he had to, all while a sense of despair grasped at his neck. As he stared at his wife, all he could get out was a simple statement that she should get a sleep study because of her nightmares, not able to even look her in the eye, his own fear too great. He had delivered countless diagnoses, many with poor prognoses, and helped patients find meaning in their lives, but with his own wife before him, he could barely bring himself to speak. Thoughts overwhelmed him: I am failing my wife. I am failing my patients. I am failing myself. His mind had become a Tartarus of fear, doubt, self-loathing, and uncertainty with no escape in sight. Yet, in his despair, he turned to someone who brought him comfort in the past during times of great distress and uncertainty: his father, a philosophical man filled with wisdom from a life long-lived.
As he sat and told his father everything, he could barely contain himself as he broke down from the weight of all the fear, doubt, and uncertainty. There was a long pause in their conversation as his father looked at him with kind, warm eyes. Then, his father spoke: "You’re not a failure son, you’re human. Your mind and knowledge
have turned against you because you've been bearing this burden alone. I can’t tell you what the right way forward is, but I can tell you doing it alone and endlessly pondering it isn't the way. Each of us walks a path toward an end we all know too well. We meet wonderful people along the way who change the trajectory and length of our path, intertwining ours with theirs, all while weathering immense storms and experiencing wonderful nights. Your wife has a new storm on the horizon, but if I were her, I can't think of anyone I'd rather weather it with on my path than you. Talk with her openly, express your feelings, and be there for each other; the way forward will become clearer as you walk. Walk the path together." For the first time in months, Adrienne felt a sense of comfort. His doubt, fear, and uncertainty remained, but they lessened. In what felt like ages, he felt a mental calm, hope, and a sense of resolve that he and his wife would find a way forward. He promised himself after leaving his father's home that he would share his fears with his wife, help her get care, and be with her every step of the way.
fenwick island reimagined Mario Cornacchione, DO, associate professor of family medicine
Not only light but the interaction of patterns, shapes, tones, mood and motion are components that make a photograph for me.
fenwick island reimagined Mario Cornacchione, DO, associate professor of family medicine
"I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way." — Claude
Monet
betadine and blood
Betadine and Blood
Dried on the operating room floor
Marks (in the case of this surgery) of success
But for the janitors, a mess
As the surgeon begins a post op note
The room is quietly reset
Many hands work, moving carts, tables, bags of waste
And one (living) human life
All to various places in and out of the room
Suddenly a mop passes of the dried mural on the floor
Stains of betadine and blood there no more
A glistening surface awaits to receive the gore
Not a gore of carnage or war
No
If blood and steel were the fuel of feuding empires
Then we strive to use betadine and blood to
Aid and heal
jacob kornilow, md class of 2027
lights of the night - erica kuo, md class of 2026
While busy in the day, the port at night gives a quite peaceful and calming environment to relax at.
the contagion of life
Of all the guides in tales
Virgil through inferno, Charon through the Styx
How was I to know that Medicine would insist
I evolve from a cave dweller to Plato
To guide those that are sick
How am I to guide anyone
When thus far I have been led
To say yes sir no sir
To have no “other” thoughts in my head
How do two letters
Change my DNA
A short walk, a piece of paper
Now suddenly, I’m a sage?
How can I know in thirty years
What some at life’s end still don’t
How can I possibly be prepared
To guide a life not my own?
Through the treacherous waters
Of illness and of death
O captain my captain they cry
Do they realize my own lack of depth?
All the world’s a stage
And I am merely a player
My patients’ exits and their entrances
I their most honored surveyor
Do I deserve their trust
As they come with all that ails?
What do I know of life and death
And all that they both entail?
How am I to guide them?
How do I do what is right?
Is seeing always believing
Or can words matter more than sight?
If I can learn the lines
And recite them all in truth
Can I fool everyone (and myself)
To believe, and perhaps, to soothe?
I never saw myself
As a Charon or a Virgil
Guiding those through unknown paths
Of the body’s most testing hurdles
emily grimes, md class of 2025
But now I understand that
Physicians are much more
Than studies and tests and research
We are healers at our core
So though I may not know
Much of life, of death, of living
I know that in my heart of hearts
What matters most is giving
Giving myself to those
Who trust me with their strife
Submitting to guiding those
Infected with the contagion we call life
I won’t be perfect, I know
Sometimes I will fail
But I hope when it’s my turn to be guided
Some young doctor will learn
How to help others say farewell
Spiritual reflection
bill jeffries, phd
This scene is at the ruins of a medieval monastery in Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland. I patiently waited for her to walk out of the shot, but she remained motionless for several minutes, clearly deep in thought or meditation.
borrowed home
madison wivell, md class of 2025
As years unfold, my hands grow weak once firm and strong, I now softly speak. I could once walk from here to there with my steps unbound by this chair. Now someone lends a hand to help me walk, to help me stand.
This room is small, the walls are bare I rather be elsewhere. The life I knew left behind now a distant echo in my mind.
The choices I once made with ease now gone with the breeze. A simple meal, a path to take all shaped by others’ care, not mine to make.
My hands no longer hold the reins now just bound by the chains. The strength I had, the will to roam now tethered to this borrowed home.
mystical iceland
Edward Lahart, MS
registraR
Steam weaves through moss and stone, beneath sapphire skies.
iceland's geothermal wonder Rebecca Slangan, MBA, Associate Dean for Academic Administration In the land of fire and ice, steam dances ever so gracefully.
hope
Oliver Klemmer, MD class of 2028
People push past hope for reason
Ever-fleeting, unrequited, unnecessary hope
Bad news requires restless resuscitation of plans
Forcing dreams and desires to a forgotten hiding place
Yet, through all of this change one little feeling remains
Physicians work in plans, physiology, and pathology
Shifting between diagnoses with unrelenting clarity
They decide treatment options and push new therapies
Always to instill this last, almost forgotten, ideology
Yet, hope does not discriminate,
It works to better them both,
Coughing patients and sleep-deprived residents,
A brighter sun may one-day rise
Bringing finality to the years of pain and suffering.
It seems futile to expect one to experience it
With worsening health and frightening cost aside, The unrelenting march of a worsening prognosis
Forces people to expect one final overnight visit.
Yet, hope does not discriminate and returns in time.
As if that last remnant of Pandora’s box was a gift to humankind.
my three trees
rakhi ratanjee
md class of 2027
Sometimes, it can feel as though the world is narrowing, when your worth becomes measured by responsibilities, expectations and achievements but all you feel is isolation, anxiety and fear. It is in those times that I seek out my three trees: my mother, my father and I, who will always help me see beyond the walls that are closing in.
the
winged wanderer
erica kuo
md class of 2026
Take inspiration from the winged wanderer, embracing the twists and turns through the journey of life with courage and grace.
the park
Ian J. McCoog, EdD, Director of Data Management
“Maybe we’ll go the park afterward?” I said as we passed the Hershey’s Chocolate World Amusement Park on our way to Hershey Medical Center. I knew we weren’t but I used the suggestion to defuse some tension. My cousin Cory and I were on our way to see our grandmother in the hospital. Three days earlier, I watched as two of my uncles helped Grandma out of her apartment and into their truck. “I’ll see you later,” followed by a pause, and then “I love you” was all I could think to say. “I don’t think we’ll feel like going anywhere after this,” Cory responded. I didn’t have a lot of experience with death. Both my dad’s parents had passed when I was very young. The grandmother we were going to see had been divorced for many years so my maternal grandfather’s passing didn’t leave a lasting impression either. By contrast, Cory had lost a brother to an overdose and his father to cancer. Add in an estranged brother, and he was all his mother had left. He knew what we were walking into; I did not.
Holidays at Grandma’s house were always special. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter were days a kid couldn’t wait for in our family. These get-togethers meant tons of homemade food and enough cousins to play a decent game of football. Either an uncle or an older cousin’s new boyfriend was always recruited into service as the “official quarterback” meaning he wasn’t allowed to do anything but throw the ball to us kids. Over time, our family grew as cousins, aunts, and uncles got married (sometimes remarried) and had kids. Our family shrunk on occasion when people got divorced or a family tiff caused someone’s absence. But death was always shielded from us to protect our innocence perhaps. My childhood was happy. I didn’t know loss. Grandma was the pillar that held my happiness aloft.
My mom was a nurse. She worked at the local doctor’s office which didn’t close until after I was out of school, so many of my afterschool hours were spent at Grandma’s house along with my younger cousin, Ryan. I remember how long the entryway to her house seemed and how her carpeted steps were the best for sliding down on your butt. Her home was so full of life. Her brother lived there until he died and various uncles took up residence in a back bedroom, basement, or attic. At a recent family wedding, an aunt told the story of when Ryan and I drank wine coolers in the basement, thinking they were fruit punch. I had forgotten that, but I could still tell you what the basement smelled like.
When it became too difficult for Grandma to live on her own, she moved into an apartment behind our house. My dad, a contractor, bought a building with a three-bay garage and a dilapidated apartment above it. He restored the living space and my grandma moved in. Her house had become too big for just her. The apartment was a perfect solution even if the steps were too steep and occasionally exhaust from the cars below made it upstairs. She had enough space for herself and to still host the holidays that brought her a lot of joy. Her backdoor was only a small backyard away from ours. My cousins were jealous as I had Grandma all to myself most days. She had become quieter and a bit distant in the weeks that led up to that day she had the heart attack yet still walked out of the apartment with her sons. I knew she wasn’t feeling well but I didn’t know what was going on.
My 1996 Jeep Cherokee rolled into the parking lot a few minutes after we passed Hershey Park. The hospital felt like an adventure, one that I
hoped would have a happy ending, but I wasn’t sure would. Cory and I entered the waiting room at the hospital. My mom was there. A few of her siblings were there. I don’t really remember much. I do remember the scene when we went to see our Grandma. The tubes and monitors that my medical students can explain with ease were foreign to me. All I could think was, “she wouldn’t want to live this way.” The same words echoed in my head years later, the day my dad passed away. I distinctly remember my Uncle Joey saying “no man would want to live this way” and my mind went back in time 17 years earlier when I thought the same thing about Joey’s mom, my mom’s mom, my grandma. I don’t remember what I said to my mom on my way out of the hospital. I don’t remember the ride home, but I know we didn’t go to the park.
Grandma passed away on the 4th of July. The holiday is complicated for my mom. Her passing on a holiday though somehow seemed fitting for someone who loved having her family around her on holidays. It was the day before I was supposed to go to college for placement testing. I never did take those tests. I guess they assumed from my high school grades that I could handle college math and writing.
It's been 23 years since my Grandma died. In that time, Cory died. A car accident although it was probably brought on by the same drugs that took his oldest brother’s life and to this day threaten to take my aunt’s middle child as well. He left his mother an infant son by the same name whom she adores. I was a groomsman in Ryan’s wedding and he was the same in mine. Multiple times. My mom became a grandmother, and I watch her do the same duties with my kids that her mom did with me and Ryan. Visiting the cemetery has become routine. You park your car and walk in. Grandma and her brother are first. A short walk up the footpath leads to my dad and his parents. A space on his headstone waits for my mom. I’ve already instructed my wife that a few of my ashes should be spread in the woods behind my parents when the time comes. Her genes are so much better than mine that this duty is already a foregone conclusion.
Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter are different. There are no football games in the yard. My mom’s siblings tend to spend the holidays with their immediate families. It’s so hard to keep everyone together when the matriarch is gone. We’ve become a family of weddings and funerals. The weddings recently are no longer my uncles or even my cousins. Now my cousins’ kids are old enough to marry. The funerals are still for the old. It will be yet another transition for us when the funerals are for the aunts and uncles who helped Grandma cook the turkey every Thanksgiving or threw the football with their right hand while holding their beer in the left.
Go to the park when it’s sunny, for there will be cloudy days. But the clouds don’t last, and you’ll see the sun again. Or, as Neurologist and poet Debasish Mridha puts it, “Clouds can never hide the sun forever; so don’t complain about clouds but never forget to welcome the sun.”
antiquity
anonymous
md class of 2026
A view of the Colosseum from the Palpatine Gardens.
Kilmainham Gaol
Bill jeffriEs, phd
Kilmainham Gaol
is an Edwardian Jail in Dublin where the English ministers confined Irish prisoners. The prisoners, as young as 3, awaited the end of their sentence, their transportation to confinement in British colonies or their execution. This scene is of the Victorian era extension, to cope with the large number of inmates. The prison closed after the creation of the Irish Free State in 1924.
habe ich geschwiegen
Amanda Caleb, phd, mph, Professor of Medical Humanities
It always begins with language. Not with slurs or slogans— the shifts are more subtle, silent edits to our speech, italicizing the foreign them, correcting pronoun shifts.
The change is silent because we too are silent: a pregnant pause dares us to speak, but we do not.
We don’t laugh at the joke, but we don’t speak either. And that, too, is language.
Silence has a grammar— it organizes not just sentences but also our ideas. Its subjects unspoken, its verbs enacted, its meanings carried in what we choose not to name.
Each time we don’t correct, don’t question, don’t say: that’s not true— the language learns. It adapts. It hardens.
And then one day it is not just opinion but policy. Not just speech but law. And the silence is not just deafening but deadly.
maintenance station
bill jeffries, phd
This is the scene inside the maintenance shed at An Díseart, the Díseart Institute of Irish Spirituality and Culture, Dingle, Couty Kerry, Ireland. The center has elaborate grounds, which are maintained by the workers who use this shed.
belonging
Sofia Muniz de la Nuez, md class of 2027
Excuse me, where are you from?
Not the same question again — I thought.
And the same standard answer pops up.
No, where is your accent from?
I look at where he had looked at,
My full name spelled out stares back.
My actual answer slides out
And I make sure to not let the smile fall
¿De dónde eres?
It's another flashback.
The country I just answered
Had asked me the same question once upon.
It's not their fault,
My accent and name may have helped
But my skin and hair did not let me blend.
With our ancestors talking of Changó y Obatalá
You would not expect me to match our crispest of sands
With the rhythm of claves y son permeating our blood
You would not expect for my hair to match our brightest of suns
With the sweat and tears spent on our sugar and tobacco camps
You would not expect my eyes to match our mountainside
So I'll answer without knowing much.
...Where am I from?
when the question has been asked for as long as I can recall
The Majestic Jesuit Church of Lucerne: A serene blend of history and beauty by the tranquil waters of Lake Lucerne
MaryAnn Babinski, Administrative Assistant, Office of the Dean
A stunning evening view of the Jesuit Church in Lucerne, Switzerland, beautifully illuminated and reflecting on the calm waters of the Reuss River.
hispanic
Esnel A Diaz, md class of 2028
Currently I sit here staring at a questionnaire,
I know I have been looking at the bright computer screen for an unusually long amount of time, but the word Hispanic is flashing back at me!
The longer I stare, the more the word turns into a reflection of who I am — a Cuban immigrant whose family ran away from home hoping for food security, freedom from political persecution, and a better future for me and my sister.
But then again, my friend Miguel from Mexico didn’t go through the same experiences as me, nor did Mario, Augustine, Nataeli, Jorge, Esteban, or Luisa; all with different stories. I guess we would all fall under Hispanic though. What assumptions are they even going to make?
Seems a bit weird to have one category for all of us. I gotta run but, maybe someone should fix that.
Hispanic
legacy
rakhi ratanjee md class of 2027
We engrave our names and initials on logs, branches, rocks, scratching them into doors and under desks, in a fierce attempt to mark our presence. Years later, our descendents gaze upon our scribbles and imagine the stories of who we might have been. If our marks on the world are fleeting, what does that mean for our legacy?
behind the veil
Divya Sundararajan
md class of 2027
A misty paradise at twilight.
the black diamond
Shemyia Smith, mbs class of 2024
We are formed in nature’s womb, buried deep within the mantle we are strong, elegant, pure and transformed a creation of beauty, yet unrecognizable we are born rich, yet seen as poor often misunderstood and labeled angry and bitter
our black, thick layers shield us bearing life’s relentless pressures we are not what they claim— often despised and cast aside we are forced into this one faceless group only noticed when we erupt
we have been here all along shining bright like a diamond heat and pressure shape our structure although we are imperfect our brilliance shines—undeniably a treasure, refined by fire
the raw beauty is seen a gem, rare and enduring persistent, never to be softened the toughest, the unbreakable are we too much for humankind? no—remember: you are a black diamond.
fields of tea erica kuo, md class of 2026
Terraces of tea in the heart of the mountains.
Vertical Echoes: City in Motion Amanda Caleb, phd, mph, Professor of Medical Humanities
The long exposure created a dreamlike reflection of Victoria Harbor and the Hong Kong cityscape.
the night market
Isar Mahmood Ali, mbs class of 2025
The Night Market was a mixture of sounds and colors, drawing attention to the multitude of unique stalls and tents scattered throughout the place. Merchants hawked their wares, indifferent to how their loud voices blended into a deafening cacophony, getting lost somewhere in the winds. Whispers ran through the crowds like bouts of electricity, trading in secrets as much as monetary goods. Somewhere from the far side of the market echoed the clatter of pots and pans, and if she followed it, Mira was sure she would find the source of the deliciously sweet scents.
Rumored to be a place of complete chaos, the Night Market attracted thieves and rooks running unchecked, illicit substances by the tons, and at the heart of it all, greedy merchants trading goods for the price of souls. It was no place for casual customers, and it was certainly no place for a young, respectable maiden.
Mira had known this much when she decided to step into the market; she had been preparing for an exquisitely hostile environment. She had learned to conceal stashes of her money while keeping just enough on hand to not be suspicious, to hold weapons at just the right angle so no one would realize she wouldn’t be able to wield them. Yet still she had come, to a place she had heard only in passing whispers, a place promising the salvation she so desperately needed.
A shoulder collided with hers from behind, and she stepped to the side just in time for a group of newcomers to push past her and into the nightlife. Several of them looked back at her, and she wondered what she looked like; ‘sketchy’ was the first word to come to her mind. She should go inside before someone decides that she’s to be picked on.
Taking a deep breath, Mira started to make her way through the maze of stalls, her eyes glossing over the many trinkets and shawls and charms. The Night Market was an ever-changing display, a chaotic blend of services that rearranged itself with every visit. No stalls remained for consecutive nights, and the specific stall Mira needed appeared only once every month or so. A fact she was acutely aware of—one that followed her like a shadow, constantly reminding her that this was likely it. If she didn’t find it tonight, she would lose her last hope.
She had first heard about it through a rumor at a dinner party: a rare healing herb, a sprig valued higher than gold, known to cure any illness, any disease. For so long, it had been nothing more than a dream, an impossible miracle. But as her desperation grew, she found herself willing to chase even the whisper of a miracle. So she had searched, followed every lead, paid off criminals and detectives alike, and visited seedy taverns for any signs of this elusive herb.
It was during one of these interactions that she finally found the information she needed: tonight would be one of the rare nights where the merchant known to carry this herb would set up. So here she was, completely out of her element, making her way through the throngs of patrons who moved with purpose, their faces hidden behind masks and hoods. Thieves, rogues, immoral souls bartering away anything they had to offer—the words were a chant in her head, louder than the blood rushing to her ears, than the rapid beating of her frightened heart.
And yet, Mira was now one of them, willing to trade anything for a cure…wasn’t she just like them, then? Chasing something she couldn’t bear to lose, even if it meant losing herself in the process? It was a striking realization, one that completely stopped her in her tracks; a deep, throbbing ache overtook her chest as she revisited the lines she was willing to cross for this last resort. They were blurry as is, and she wondered if she wouldn’t completely erase them if it came to that.
She realized a beat too late that her hesitation had been a mistake. Nearby merchants had already mistaken her pause as interest, surging toward her and crowding her with loud promises of products both unique and alluring. Charms of good fortune and wealth and dark magic that held no position in her world. Mira was greedy for only one thing in this Market, and it would not be so easily found.
She attempted to back away, politely declining, but every step only led to another eager vendor, each one more persistent than the last, drawing on her desperation in hopes of making a sale. A bony hand shot out from the crowds and latched onto her wrist with a deathly tight grip. She barely had time to yelp before she was yanked out and away from the crowds.
She turned with a thankful expression on her lips, only to be caught off guard. An old woman, nearly a crone, stood before her, her hair a wild, tangled mess of white locks and eyes as sharp as glass. She grasped Mira’s other wrist, drawing her to a tent not far away.
“I know you,” she rasped, holding tight even as Mira struggled to pull away. “Yes, yes, I do know you. I saw you coming. It was written in the stars.” She kept muttering prophecies foretold, of moments when the planets aligned and told her that Mira would come to seek her out. “I know what you need. Something real, something tangible.”
“I—no, I’m not—” Mira stammered, trying to pull away.
“Nonsense,” she said, her breath half catching on a laugh. “I know what you need.” She gestured around her tent, to the cluttered shelves and tables haphazardly strewn around the place. Bottles of all shapes and
colors crowded every surface, their contents swirling mysteriously, as if the foreboding location and woman weren’t unsettling enough. The woman continued rambling as she shuffled through them, listing off names without pausing for breath. “Truth serums to reveal the hidden, potions for beauty and fertility, charms for true love, I have it all,” she continued, and Mira found that it might be best if she just walked away without explaining herself.
She inched backwards towards the open flaps, intending to run away without another word, but her resolve seemed to crumble at the old woman’s next revelation.
“Immortality,” she whispered, her voice low and sly. “To cheat death, to hold onto life no matter the cost.” Mira went still, the noise of the market fading away as the single word echoed in her mind. The old woman picked up on Mira’s slight intake of breath, the halted steps, and she knew that she was caught. “Yes, immortality indeed, I should have known. Look at you, so young, so beautiful…so much potential. This would be all you need.”
Mira’s mind went into overdrive, a whirlwind of thoughts crashing into each other. Immortality. A cure for death itself. Would it work? Could it somehow counteract the disease? The thought lodged itself in Mira’s mind, unyielding.
The old woman seemed to sense Mira’s hesitation and leaned in closer, her cracked lips curling into a knowing smile. She thought she had Mira figured out, found the one temptation too strong to resist.
The old woman rattled on, weaving promises of everlasting life, of staying young and untouched by time. She wasn’t wrong, but she was still mistaken. Mira didn’t need it for beauty or youth or any other material promises the crone made.
Let her believe it, Mira thought. Let her think the greed was her own. The truth didn’t matter. She had other things to worry about; she hadn’t thought about it before but an offer of immortality would surely counteract a terminal diagnosis. She still had a little while…perhaps
she would still be able to find the herb and not need such a drastic step after all.
Mira straightened her shoulders, trying to sound composed despite the turmoil in her mind. “I… I appreciate the offer very much,” she managed, forcing a weak smile. “Perhaps we can pick this up in a bit? I have an appointment to get to.”
The old woman’s expression tightened, her eyes narrowing. “Time?” she rasped. “You think you have time? Foolish girl. You’re clinging to fading hope. This chance won’t wait for you. Go then!” Her voice sharpened, almost dripping with venom. “Go and attend to your appointment. See if such a thing waits around for you.”
Mira hesitated, her heart pounding. The woman’s words struck a nerve, feeding on the doubt gnawing at her resolve. She spun around, playing with her potions, ignoring Mira.
I should leave. I’m running out of time. I have to find the herb.
The herb. A miracle no one had seen before, a thing of rumors. Mira clenched her hands at her sides, willing herself to move, to walk away. She could leave, continue the search; that’s what she should do. But the truth kept her rooted—she would have to search for the herb, and she had no guarantee it’s here, if it even exists. She could spend all night searching for something that had never been more than a myth.
But she was here right now, and the potion is so very real, so tangible. It was right in front of her. Perhaps it was fate that she had come here and stumbled into this stall tonight. Perhaps the chance to fight back had found her on its own, right now, right here. Could she really risk leaving it behind, only to find herself empty-handed when time finally ran out?
“I…” she faltered, the words sticking to the back of her throat. Indecision pooled in her gut, twisting uncomfortably. “What would be the cost of such a thing? Would it… would it work on someone who’s sick?”
The old woman stopped working, but continued facing away from Mira. There was a definite note of laughter in her voice as she continued. “Cost? Dearie, if it’s sickness you’re worried about, cost isn’t your problem.” She turned around, a sly smile on her lips and a gleam in her eyes. In her hands was a simple, unassuming bottle. “Immortality cares nothing for illness. Once the potion takes hold, sickness can’t touch them. Death itself will look the other way.”
She held the bottle up for Mira to examine. A small, circular, glass bottle, sealed tight with a corkscrew. Inside, the liquid a deep, royal blue that lay flat and still at the bottom.
“That’s it?” She couldn’t help but voice her thoughts, laced with disappointment. She flinched, wishing she could reel the words back in.
The crone’s lips twisted into a sneer. “That’s it,” she echoed, her tone sharp. “You expected what? Fireworks? Don’t be foolish. The most powerful magics don’t care to show off.” The old woman eyed Mira closely, the hint of a sneer still curling at the corner of her mouth. Then, all of a sudden, as if a switch had been flipped, her stance changed, the harshness in her voice melting away as her expression softened into something akin to pity.
“It was written in the stars, I tell you,” she says, her tone a gentle lull, as if speaking to a child. “I saw it. A girl so strong, so determined. Fighting against fate to hold on. Carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. You’re trying so hard, aren’t you? But, of course, you have to. What else can you do?”
She paused momentarily, her soft eyes taking Mira in. She cradled the bottle as if it were a babe, stroking the clear glass with one long fingernail. “Disease,” she breathed, the word a half whisper. “Oh, what a heartless curse it is. There are many like you, you know. Many who want to hold on; who have tried every remedy, every treatment, every whispered promise. And still, the sickness doesn’t care. It takes and takes, doesn’t it?”
Mira attempted to take a gulp of air, to convince her lungs she’s not
drowning and just breathe; the effort felt futile. Her words dug into Mira’s mind, intertwining with her thoughts like a shapeless fog. “Many fight, child, even if they don’t have the right weapons. But you…haven’t you fought long enough? You came here for a cure, and a cure has found you. Take it. You’ve fought long enough. Let this be your answer; you deserve that much, don’t you think?”
Mira felt her resolve crumble as she gave in to the idea. She reached forward for the bottle in a trance, and the woman’s smile brightened.
Just as Mira’s fingertips brushed the cool glass, a sharp voice cut through the tension like a blade.
“Business picking up again?” Mira froze, her gaze snapping to the tent’s entrance. A man stood in the doorway, his face half covered by a mask, the remaining shrouded in the darkness of the night.
Mira sensed the old woman’s distaste for the stranger, just as she sneered and pushed past Mira to approach the newcomer.
“None of your business,” she leered. “None of your business, I say, boy. How dare you come to my tent, how dare you interrupt my sales?”
The man didn’t so much a look at the crone. He stepped further into the tent, allowing the lanterns to fully illuminate him. His dark gaze was resting on Mira since the moment he had come in, an indistinguishable expression clouding his features. “What are you selling her?” he pressed, his voice low, but firm.
His eyes flickered to the bottle held in the old woman’s hand, and her fingers tightened around the bottle. She grumbled, cursing at the newcomer. When his resolve didn’t break, she finally gave in: “It’s an immortality potion,” she grumbled, reluctantly. “A fine piece of work. Powerful. Ages old.”
The man’s expression became furious. He strode forward in one quick movement, grabbing Mira’s arm before she could react. “Come on,” he said, his voice lower, urgent. “We’re leaving.”
“Wait—what?” Mira protested, but he didn’t loosen his grip, dragging her out of the tent and away from the shop. She stumbled to keep up, glancing back to see the old woman glaring after them, eyes burning with rage.
“You don’t understand!” Mira snapped, trying to twist free. “I need that!” But the man didn’t stop, his pace relentless. He pulled her away, away, away from the tent, taking so many twists and turns that she couldn’t go back even if she tried. Only once they had cleared the whole Market did he let go of her wrist.
She immediately pulled it back, cradling it to her chest. “How dare you! How-” she struggled, breathing in gasps as angry tears filled her eyes. The man faltered, clearly taken aback by the sheer intensity of her reaction. Mira didn’t give him a chance to respond, she couldn’t; her words were tumbling out, rapid and uncontrolled. “Who are you? How dare you touch me! Take me back! Take me back immediately, I must speak to her, I must-” she broke off with a gasp, taking a mouthful of air and choking on it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said gently, his voice filled with extreme sadness. He had the decency to look guilty, at least. Yet, his words set her off even more.
“I don’t know? You have no idea how important this is! You don’t get it! That potion—it could save her. I need that!” He opened his mouth to say something, but Mira cut him off. “Do you know how long I’ve searched? How much I’ve risked just to find something—anything—that might work? You don’t know! You can’t just decide for me!”
The man’s expression hardened, his jaw clenched tight. He took a deep, shaky breath, his patience snapping under the weight of Mira’s insistence. “You think I don’t understand?” he growled, his voice rough and trembling. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever been desperate enough to try anything? I thought I was saving them too!”
Mira looked up, startled by his sudden unexpected outburst. He laughed a broken, bitter laugh. “If an immortality potion exists, why not use it, right?” he spat, the words dripping with contempt. “It sounds so simple, cheating death. I thought that I could save them, too. So I did it. I found the potion. I gave it to them. And you know what happened?” He took a step closer, his hands clenched into fists, voice rising. “I killed them. I killed my family.”
Mira’s mouth went dry, shock rendering her mute. Her mind stilled, as if she had just been caught in the eye of a tornado. “It was supposed to be so easy,” he laughed, his voice halfway breaking. “They were supposed to be okay. Not—not this weird limbo state they got. They can’t die, but they can't live. They’re stuck there, forever, in constant pain. And I did that to them. I did that.” He whispered the last bit all to himself, losing himself for a moment. Mira searched for something to say, something to offer him.
He didn’t seem to need it, though. He gestured back toward the tent, his movements sharp and furious. “So go ahead. Buy it. Go and give it to your loved one, or take it yourself—since you seem to know so damn much about what it means to save someone. Go on. Do it. And when you’re left with nothing but a husk of the person you tried to save—”. He broke off, perhaps realizing that whatever words he had on the tip of his tongue might just carve Mira’s heart out.
His breath was ragged, his shoulders heaving with the effort to take another breath. “Buy it,” he said, his voice lower now, hollow, as if all the anger and emotion he was just bursting with had evaporated. “Go and make the same mistake I did. And don’t ever regret it.”
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t even muster a response. The weight of his words pressed down on her, suffocating. Her tears wouldn’t stop coming now; she could barely think straight as the full weight of the situation crashed into her. Her mind was reeling, and then she was reeling, reaching out to hold herself up by leaning on the wall next to her. The cold, textured bricks contrasted so starkly with her hot skin, and she felt as if she might go into shock.
She tried—God help her, she tried—to say something to this broken stranger. Tried and failed. When she finally managed to look up, her tears a hot, blinding cascade, he was gone. The alley stretched out before her, empty and silent, as if he had never been there at all.
Mira pressed her forehead against the wall, forcing herself to breathe as her body yielded to powerfully harsh and raw sobs. She gave in to them, sinking to the ground once she couldn’t hold herself up anymore, curling in on herself to find comfort in her own embrace. Her sobs tore through her chest, echoing off the quiet alley walls, and she didn’t care who heard. The cold, damp ground seeped through her clothes, but she barely noticed.
Her mind raced through images and memories, a million a minute. She remembered the soft laugh that came when Mira cracked an especially bad joke while making breakfast. She remembered those long, long movie nights, when they’d spend forever picking out what to watch, only to end up crashing on the couch barely an hour in. She remembered each little moment that she took for granted too long: grabbing coffee together in the morning, teasing each other over burnt toast, smelling each scented candle in the store, even as they both knew they wouldn’t buy any.
Mira leaned her head back against the rough wall, letting her tears flow unrestrained. Each sob brought on a new wave of pain, and she relished it. She squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to the memories as if reliving them might somehow make them tangible again.
One memory surfaced above the rest, clearer and sharper than the others. She saw, as if from an outside perspective, her little sister running out of the doctor’s office after the latest appointment. As they reached the car, her sister paused, leaning against the door. Mira had opened the door for her, like they did a million times since they were kids. Her sister had taken the door and smiled at Mira over it, her expression so warm and open it almost hurt to remember.
"I’m happy it ends like this," she had said, her voice calm and certain. "That I get to spend all the rest of my life with you. I may have bad luck when it comes to other things, but at least I got the bestest older sister in the universe. That’s more than I could have hoped for."
She had been left standing there, her heart a tumultuous mess of emotions. And then she was back in the alley, curled into a little ball on the cold floor, listening to the now distant sounds of the Night Market. She knew what she should do—stop searching, stop pushing.
Live in the moment, like her sister had asked her to do every day since the initial diagnosis. Mira felt a wave of helplessness crash over her; to stop the search, to give in to the cruel fate, would be to go against everything she had promised herself. It would mean letting go of her sister. It would mean she would be truly, utterly alone. No one to lean on, no one to rely on.
The thought of being alone sent a fresh wave of panic through her, choking her sobs into shuddering gasps. She was terrified—of the loss, of the emptiness that would follow. The idea of moving on felt unbearable, like stepping into a void that would never end.
Mira buried her face in her hands, shaking from the force of her cries. She stayed there, curled up and hurting, too afraid to confront the reality of what letting go would truly mean. Her sobs faded into soft, broken hiccups, draining the last of her remaining energy. Her thoughts slowed as the realization sank.
Nadia didn’t want this—she never had. She never asked Mira for a cure, for some magical solution or miracle. Mira had always done everything for her sister, given her everything but this one thing. All she wanted was time—not to live for herself, but to spend with her sister, to love and to make memories.
A shaky breath rattled through Mira’s chest, and she lifted her head, wiping her wet cheeks with trembling fingers. How could she be so cruel, so selfish as to deny her baby sister the one thing she asked for? And if Mira couldn’t even grant her that, the chance to just spend time
together, what would distinguish her from the cruel selfishness of the disease she had come to hate so much?
Mira pressed her hands to the gritty ground, forcing herself upright. A few stray tears slipped free, but her heart didn’t feel quite so heavy anymore. Nadia deserved better than a sister who was too caught up in fear to be present. She had been seeking complex answers for so long that she had blinded herself to the simplest one that was in front of her the whole time.
Her heart still ached, but the decision settled over her like a calm after a storm. She would be there for Nadia, just as Nadia had always been there for her. Mira would hold on to every small moment, cherish every smile, and let herself be present, just as Nadia wanted. The cool night air brushed against her skin, reminding her that the world hadn’t stopped. It kept moving, just as it would when Nadia was gone.
Mira took one last look at the Night Market, the chaotic energy and whispered promises full of secrets that offered her no consolation. She turned away, her steps steady even as her heart still throbbed with pain. She did not look back.
At the edge of the Market, the lantern light grew faint, swallowed by the dark. The bustling sounds of the market faded into the distance and silence wrapped her into its comforting embrace. The darkness no longer felt suffocating but peaceful; a quiet stillness settled into her bones.
Mira paused, inhaling the crisp night air, and let herself feel the weight of the decision, the finality of choosing love over fear. She felt lighter somehow—still hurting, still scared, but grounded. With one last steady breath, Mira stepped forward, leaving the Night Market behind. The world seemed quieter now, and Mira found comfort in knowing that, at least for tonight, when she reached home, Nadia would be waiting.
A Tranquil Journey on Lake Lucerne
MaryAnn Babinski, Administrative Assistant, Office of the Dean Tranquil reflections: Serene Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, cradled by lush mountains and snow-capped peaks under a clear blue sky.
thriving in harmony
Gabi Waite, PhD
Vice Chair of Medical Education
Each winter, we keep a patch of lake water open, and this year, a pair of hooded mergansers made it their refuge, thriving in the cold and laying six eggs. Their resilience mirrors our work at Geisinger — flourishing through connection, adaptation and shared purpose.
parking lot nap
It was around 9:30 when I pulled into the parking garage at the hospital. My pickup truck snaked its way up to the 4th level. Employees aren’t allowed to park below the 3rd level, and it’s easier to park a larger vehicle on the upper levels with more open spaces. I had taken a meeting on the phone and spent a few minutes finishing up before I exited my vehicle. I noticed out of my peripheral as I pulled into the parking spot a woman sleeping in the driver’s seat of a white SUV across from me. I tried not to pry and only gave the slightest glance in her direction to make sure she didn’t appear to be in distress and was actually asleep.
As I walked from the parking area to the steps that would lead me to the hospital, I passed her vehicle and noticed a front license plate for the Pennsylvania Sherrif’s Association. My brain of course went to the most Netflix-drama inspired places it could. Maybe there was a prisoner receiving treatment and the best place for her to catch a few winks was in her vehicle. Maybe her husband worked for the sheriff’s office and was injured in the line of duty; she, an exhausted wife, could use a few moments of respite. I knew I would never get answers to those scenarios or the reason she was napping in a hospital parking garage at 9:30 a.m. As my wise mind caught up, empathy took hold. No one chooses to sleep in a hospital parking garage on the verge of mid-morning. Something had happened to this woman or a loved one. I wanted to help but I also didn’t want to intrude. My better nature has gotten the best of me in situations like this in the past. I have found that as many times as someone appreciated someone checking in on them, there were as many people who just wanted to be left alone. Not to mention a stranger tapping on your window would be startling and perhaps even
Ian J. McCoog, EdD, director of data management
harassment. Hospital ID or no hospital ID, I was a stranger and it wasn’t my job. If I had a legitimate concern, security would handle the situation.
So I mostly just felt bad for her and worried enough to head to my office and write this short piece. I had once walked the halls of the very same hospital, not as a doctor but as a worried parent of a newborn who would never come home. I recalled walking the hallway in the middle of the night in a stupor that would have alerted anyone watching the security cameras. I couldn’t tell if I was exhausted or broken. Looking back, I was probably both. It struck me as odd as I walked the same hallway on the way to my office after seeing the woman sleeping in the lot. Am I trained to look for people in need or had my own experience, in that place, in that spot primed me to look for the grief that I had experienced?
Twenty years ago, I entered this hospital as a patient. I had no money and had just finished a bachelor's degree in history and philosophy. My hair was long. I played my crappy guitar for hours on end. I didn’t have many worries. As I wrote this, I took a moment to look out of my office window. My reflection confirmed that I’m balding on top. My guitar is much nicer but doesn’t leave its case very often. As I reflected on my own journey, I thought of that woman asleep in her SUV and hoped that her life had played out as unexpectedly wonderful as my own.
I left the hospital around 5:00 and the white SUV remained unmoved.
medical mural Tierney Woitas, mbs class of 2025
The medical mural embodies aspects of freedom and medicine that tie together to represent the 171st Air Refueling Wing's medical group. The mural is displayed in the waiting room to inspire airmen of the medical group, as well as provide a visual scene for patients.
The Girl with Hair like Fruit
Iris Johnston, Senior Library Specialist
树 was cautioned to make careful prayers for her daughters, because it’s no good praying for a child to be wealthy if they grow up selfish, and it’s no good for them to be brilliant if their health is poor. 树 thought for a long time, and settled on praying for her daughter to be moved to help others. “If she’s kind,” 树 thought, “everything else will probably fall into place.”
There’s no easy way to say this: 树’s daughter’s hair grew like fruit. Cherries, grapes, and crowns of bright strawberries grew from braided vines all over her head. She had to pile them up like a bouquet wrapped in cotton when she went to sleep so she wouldn’t squish anything. 苹’s fruit hair was beautiful, and it was also delicious. Because 苹 had the kind heart her mother had prayed for, she enjoyed offering fruit to her friends and family. And 树 was right: when 苹 offered her fruit, lots of people wanted to be her friend. Life was pretty good.
When 苹 grew up she wanted to travel the world, to meet people and help them however she could. Her mother had been a great explorer, and gave 苹 lots of good advice and blessings on her journey.
Just like your hair gets curly in a humid climate, 苹’s hair tended to change depending on her surroundings. When she visited the sunny sandy place, a thick curtain of figs and dates appeared at the nape of her neck. In the foggy damp place, she grew a gooseberry fringe and curls of currants that tasted like a frown and a smile at the same time. Everywhere she went, she offered
her fruit to strangers. All the roads on earth are dotted with people asking for work or coins, and each one thanked 苹 for her fruit and offered whatever hospitality they had. A woman living in her car offered
苹 a ride. An old auntie who walked like a drunk on two wooden legs traded 苹 fruit for a hot bowl of noodle soup. In this way she saw the world.
One day 苹 came to a poor land. The roads were rough, hard to travel. The meadows were barren. When she saw a group of grannies sitting together, she put on a smile and introduced herself. She offered them some grapes from her hair.
“Are they sweet?” One granny said, plucking a fistful.
“I don’t like those black grapes,” said another while pushing a strawberry in her mouth, “they give me gas. Doreen one time tried to give me some black grapes, I told her, I said I don’t like those black grapes, they give me gas.”
“I get the worst gas when I eat broccoli, last week Denise made dinner and she put broccoli in the soup, I told her, I said that’s going to make me fart.”
“I like broccoli if it’s got that sauce I make for it.”
苹 stood quietly while the women plucked and ate. A few times she tried to ask a question. Who is Doreen? What sauce do you put on broccoli? But the grannies didn’t listen. They just took turns saying things about themselves. The plucking was never painful, but it wasn’t
exactly pleasant. Taking a berry felt like pulling a hair from her scalp, and taking a larger fruit felt a little like stretching a muscle too far. Without conversation to distract 苹, she began to feel like she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Please pardon me,” 苹 said eventually, “but I need to be going now.”
“I didn’t get any!” One granny began stuffing a bag with bananas, then snatched a whole cluster of grapes that made 苹 gasp and wince.
Other people were coming over. They were dressed shabbily, and waddling on stiff joints. Everyone looked hungry. 苹 felt sorry for them, and tried to stay another few minutes.
Pluck. Grab.
“What’d you do a stupid thing like put fruit on your head for?” 苹 tried to answer, but the person wasn’t really asking, and they kept on, “If you wanted to do something smart you should have brought ice. This will all rot and stink like a dump.”
Pinch. Twist.
“I don’t get any fresh fruit since Phyllis left town, she was the one always brought me my fruit pies and those good apples, I don’t get anything good anymore.”
Yank. Pull. A hot tickle like bleeding crept over 苹’s scalp, and she started to move away. The crowd, which was now a dozen people, just moved with her.
“I’m so hungry. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“I worked all day without anything to eat, not even lunch.”
“I never eat lunch.”
苹 shouted, “I really have to go!” and pushed out of the crowd to run away. The poor people followed her, but not very far. They were too weak from hunger, and anyway they never got anything good. Not for very long.
苹’s hair had been reduced to just stems, prickly bare and sore to the touch. Even the white berries, even the green bananas, were gone and would never ripen. Plus, she felt guilty for leaving. Those poor people were hungry, after all. They needed everything she gave them, but it hadn’t been enough to make them full.
苹 took a long rest. Some days, she believed she’d never want to help anyone again. However, she eventually got the itch to travel again, and she set out for a new land. Her fruit was still small and unripe, so 苹
kept her head wrapped like a bouquet in cotton all the time, not just when she slept. She rarely offered anything to anyone, and usually only after they were kind to her first.
Eventually 苹 arrived in a wealthy land. The roads were smooth, a pleasure to walk on. Crops of every variety grew in the meadows. 苹 was still a little apprehensive, but she took a deep breath, unwrapped her hair, and approached a group of aunties sitting under a tree.
“Good morning, aunties. Would you like a snack?”
“That’s very kind,” one auntie said, “but I couldn’t eat another bite after our nice big lunch. Kartoffla, could you eat even one more bite?”
“Not me. Tsukini, could you have even a sip of juice?”
“Not even one sip. But you, young lady, won’t you sit with us for a while?”
苹 said, “thank you. Do you know if there’s a soup kitchen nearby?”
“Ah,” now the aunties all perked up, “do you need some help? You’re hungry? We’ll show you, come see!”
“It’s not for me,” but they were already hustling her across the road to a stand with baskets of food laid out. There were pyramids of multicolored potatoes, leafy greens of all kinds, and zucchini stacked up like firewood.
“We call it the Take a ‘Tater! Most of us grow too much to finish on our own, even when we trade with neighbors. So the extras go here, for
anyone who needs them.”
As they were talking, a poor woman approached. She was so tired that she could only manage a weak smile, and leaned against the Take a ‘Tater while she examined the vegetables. The aunties greeted her.
“Oof,” she said, “I’m so exhausted I hardly know what I want to eat.”
Kartoffla’s little round face wrinkled up in a smile, “take some potatoes, then. Easy to boil, and they’ll fill you right up.”
“That’s a good idea,” the poor woman agreed, and she filled her pockets with potatoes and went on down the road.
苹 didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t help saying, “it’s good that you set up the Take a ‘Tater, but anyone who needs it has to already be walking down this road. And your land is so abundant. Shouldn’t you find a way to feed more people?”
Kartoffla said, “I feed my friends and neighbors, and they feed me. When I have extra, anyone who needs it can have it. But if I spend my life looking for hungry people, soon I won’t have any friends or neighbors. Just people I feed.”
苹 never lost the desire to travel. Everywhere she went, she offered strangers her fruit just as she always had. But whenever she was tired, she returned home to 树 and to her friends, and she lived a long and happy life.
The End.
adrift & moody
Kelly Herbst, MAEd, Student Affairs Career Coach
misty harbor
Kelly Herbst, MAEd, Student Affairs Career Coach
As a young girl growing up by the sea, the small boats sitting out in harbors always fascinated me and I made up stories in my head about them. Both are studies for 2 larger pieces
fenwick island reimagined Mario Cornacchione, DO, Associate Professor of Family Medicine
“Most creative photographs are departures from reality and it seems to take a higher order of craft to make this departure than to simulate reality.” Ansel Adams
fenwick island reimagined Mario Cornacchione, DO, Associate
Professor of Family
Medicine
"Composition, design, etc., cannot be fixed by rules, they are not in themselves a static prescription by which you can make a photograph or anything that has meaning."
Paul Strand
Sonnet (on experiencing death in the ICU)
Rattles cease, one chapter ends to start anew
The orchestral tambor of nurses sings
Shooing me to the morgue as if a shrew
No time to mourn as a new call rings
I have heard this song before, the same set piece
Bring up the transport stretcher, feel no loss
Keep to myself, ignore the crying niece
Staring into space, a lonesome albatross
I have seen the final breaths of a father
Felt the final heartbeat of a forgotten son
Yet, time stops naught as new patients gather
With finality, discarding a gifted pom
Driving them to the storeroom of great fame
The final time I get to say their name
Oliver klemmer, md class of 2028
remnants
Ashley R. D'Costa, mbs class of 2025
This is okay too.
That all that’s left is remnants,
That they’re impossible not to see,
That of course, your faith is what lingered.
The dust gathers, the roses dry, the ink of the prayer faded, the calls long stopped.
But it’s okay, because these remain
By your bedside, untouched, unmoved
As you remain.
Untouched, unmoved.
Impossible to see, but everywhere I look.
remnants
Ashley R. D'Costa mbs class of 2025
The Christ the Redeemer statue I picked up in Brazil for my late father, nestled on his nightstand amongst his old prayer books and reading glasses; taken two years since he's passed.
serenity anonymous md class of 2026
A view of the empty mountains at Andermatt.
my silent stethoscope
Maya Van Gieson, MD class of 2025
I pulled out my stethoscope from its resting place in the pocket of my backpack.
The rubber earpieces fit snugly, muffling the outside noise.
My fingers delicately grasp the bell, and I place it on her chest.
The past 3 years of medical school have taught me to listen for the classic heart sounds.
Lub dub. Lub dub.
And the occasional murmur, gallop, or rub.
Whoosh dub. Lub dub dub.
My ears readied themselves for the noise.
Silence.
My ears strained, frantically searching for any sound.
But my stethoscope remained silent.
My mom was gone.
m1 s at voodoo joaquim diego santos, md class of 2028
M1 students performed at Voodoo Brewery and shared live music with the Scranton community.
a new dawn
Divya Sundararajan
md class of 2027
A blood moon rising over a new day.
purple joy
Amanda Caleb, phd, mph, Professor of Medical Humanities
A Nymphaea "Purple Joy" water lily outside Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, Hong Kong.
midnight vigil
Leah E. Llanso, mbs class of 2025
As you lie dying beside me, I cannot bear to disturb the stillness of the open book.
It’s the medulla, the page whispers - the last tether your father has to the world, the source of those gasping breaths rattling through his chest.
Unblinking eyes no longer flinch as I wet them with drops. Part of you is already gone.
I lift your hand to gently cup my cheek, warmed by your fever.
Fingers that once brushed away my tears must now be held in place. I savor the warmth for the grandchildren who will never know this comfort.
I’m not ready for this to be the last time I map each line of your palm, etched too in mine.
Desperate, I commit to memory these hands that will no longer give me away on my wedding day.
I feel your light fading. Sleep now. Take my heart with you to keep you company on your way.
A Scranton september
Rakhi Ratanjee MD Class of 2027
Rest — at the end of a day, at the end of a rotation, at the end of a journey. Come to the lake and rest so that tomorrow can be a brighter day.
