SCOPE, Volume 3

SC PE Volume 3

Arts & Medicine

ARTS & MEDICINE

SC PE Arts & Medicine Presents

Cover Art: Heart Teju Peesay, M2022 Watercolor

Above: Skull Maria Masciello, M2020 Sharpie

SCOPE Vol. 3

Foreword A beloved father--my beloved uncle--lay dying. His mouth hung slack, his nose had that sharp prominence you see in the moribund. His clasped hands rested on his chest well-positioned for eternity. In a corner of the discreetly shaded hospice room sat his daughter-in-law, playing ‘Greensleeves’ on her cello.

Without opening his eyes, he unfolded his hands and made a flicking motion with his fingers. “Pizzicato,” he said instructively.

Why is it that throughout millenia, the seminal events of our lives are forever different and new? We have repeatedly loved, gotten sick, aged and died, the same old story, as the poet Heinrich Heine wrote, and yet we can engage with these stories over and over again, moved each time anew to sorrow and joy, delight and concern. The answer to my question is this: in both art and medicine, we experience the general phenomenon of humanity in its particular forms.

Each body has its own story, both recognizable and distinct, representative of universal experience and at the same time unlike any other’s. This makes medicine forever interesting, both scientifically and humanly, and it is also the essence of art. Going back to the vignette of my uncle’s death, how many times in the last year have I heard friends, writers and colleagues tell the story of the loss of their parent? And yet, I hold these stories each as I would hold a stone plucked from a beach, feeling its contours, admiring its smoothness or shine, its kinship with bone and heart. My uncle’s utterance, ‘pizzicato’ says so much—it speaks of his love of music, of his willingness even in extremis to engage without sentimentality, and maybe as well of his past as a schoolteacher, always ready to call out a salient fact.

Beauty, abstraction, humor, emotion, contemplation—however familiar the subject matter, each work of art speaks to us as tellingly as a body speaks to the examining physician. And that is what we have here, in this rich new edition of SCOPE. Stunning landscapes, intricate anatomical drawings, expressions of struggle and doubt, all of these bring to life not only the representation but the unique subjectivity infusing the page. What do we make of “Grasping at light” or the students bent over tiny food creations? We respond to these artists’ sense of humor as well as their seriousness in confronting a mind-bending challenge; in other words, these images merge unique perspectival layers of aesthetic particularity with a sense of philosophical and scientific inquiry. What about the wild sideways leaps of “Medical Elegy’s” metaphors or the linguistic adventures contained in “Shiprock’s” travelogues? Or take, as another example, “Cherry blossoms and neurons,” expressing through color and line a metaphorical link between disparate aspects of the natural world. “We are all connected,” the image seems to be reminding us, while its specific delicacy keeps the viewer in the here and now.

All of the generous and engaging contributions to this volume of SCOPE offer these commentaries on our irreducible, individual experience. I began this essay with the story of a specific patient and a specific moment in order to show that no patient is ever generic in sickness or death. We should offer the same understanding with respect to our colleagues and learners: we too, as clinicians and living beings, are specific and special. This edition of SCOPE is a reminder of the vision, talent and individuality in our midst.

Dr. Caroline Wellbery, MD Advisor, Arts & Medicine Professor, Department of Family Medicine

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Letter from the Editors

ARTS & MEDICINE

Welcome to the third edition of Scope Magazine! This volume features works from every class of current medical students in mediums ranging from photo and watercolor to sculpture and even food! We are also thrilled to see Scope expand to include a large number of works of prose this year, a welcome complement to the incredible visual pieces.

We are proud that Scope Magazine and Arts & Medicine have become so woven into the fabric of daily life at the Georgetown University School of Medicine that students of all artistic abilities feel comfortable submitting work to our publication.

However, this year’s edition faced some new challenges. As the first class of students to experience Georgetown’s new, accelerated medical curriculum, students’ preclinical time was reduced from two years to just 18 months. This restricted not only the time that our students had to submit their pieces but also limited the time for the editors to compile this publication. Nevertheless, we had the largest number of submissions to date, which speaks volumes to the intrinsic value that art holds in the minds of Georgetown students. The editors believe this is because Scope provides a unique outlet for artistic expression and self care, which was arguably even more of a priority for our class considering the added stress of our curriculum.

Despite the changes to the curriculum, the Catholic and Jesuit principle of cura personalis remains a constant here on the hilltop. Translated as “care of the whole person,” cura personalis challenges us to seek a more individualized approach to patient care by acknowledging and letting flourish the gifts and talents of others. With this as our foundation, it is easy to see why student groups such as Arts & Medicine thrive here: they allow us to dig deeper into ourselves and learn how to care for the parts of us that are not assessed with lab draws and CT scans. In essence, Arts & Medicine, as well as Scope, allows us to practice both the art and science of medicine each day.

Art is not only putting a pen to paper, a brush to canvas, or an eye to a camera lens. Medicine is art; the incision of a scalpel, a line of sutures, or just a few simple words to comfort a patient — art is something ingrained in the practice and learning of medicine. We believe that Scope helps to bridge the gap between these two perceptions of art and highlights the incredible talent, creativity, and passion that is cultivated at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

We invite you to witness firsthand the evolving talents and artwork of those whom we proudly claim as classmates and colleagues.

The Editors, Scope Volume 3

Nellie Darling

Michael Paolini

Erin McDonough

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD.........................................................................................................................................2 LETTER FROM THE EDITORS........................................................................................................3 CONTRIBUTORS clarke, johan.......................................................................................................................................... 32-34 collins, karin................................................................................................................................................ 38 conroy, dylan.......................................................................................................................................... 23, 40 darling, nellie..................................................................................................................................10, 27, 30 fortman, emilie............................................................................................................................................ 14 guzzi, john................................................................................................................................................ 32, 33 hack, benjamin.................................................................................................................................. 18-20, 24 khan, umar..................................................................................................................................................... 28 lai, emily......................................................................................................................................................... 22 lee, nathanael..........................................................................................................4-5, 9, 11, 20, 34, 42-43 luvisa, kyle.................................................................................................................................................... 26 mahan, marielle............................................................................................................................... 15, 24-25 masciello, maria............................................................................................................................................ 1 mcdonough, erin......................................................................................................13-14, 18, 19, 40-41, 45 mcgowan, marilyn......................................................................................................................................6-7 menino, erica........................................................................................................................................... 28-29

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Golden Gate Bridge Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo

ARTS & MEDICINE mirza, rabia................................................................................................................................................... 43 mohebbi, dave................................................................................................................................................ 21 norwood, abigayle................................................................................................................................ 28-29 o’brien, megan......................................................................................................................................... 42-43 paolini, michael........................................................................................................................... 8-10, 23, 28 peesay, teju......................................................................................................................................cover art potka, griselda............................................................................................................................................. 44 saleem, meher............................................................................................................................................... 12 sayyed, adaah.......................................................................................................................................... 16-17 schirm, karen................................................................................................................................................ 48 shefer, osher................................................................................................................................................. 27 venkat, preethi............................................................................................................................................. 39 wikholm, colin............................................................................................................................................. 35 wikholm, katherine.................................................................................................................. 30-31, 36-37 williams, matt........................................................................................................................................ 38-39 wirth, peter................................................................................................................................................... 26 wo, kellie........................................................................................................................................................ 33 zada, vian................................................................................................................................................. 44-45 ANATOMY MURAL PROJECT................................................................................................. 46-47 ABOUT US...........................................................................................................................................48

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39° N, 122° W

Marilyn McGowan, M2020 “Grandma had a really good day today,” but I don’t see it from afar.

I see the further cognitive decline, the miniscule amount eaten, the spitting up.

I don’t see that today was something to celebrate, that this has become the new normal.

I see pictures of the world on fire, my world on fire, but I don’t taste it in my throat, I don’t feel the grit in my lungs or the burn in my eyes.

Of course I don’t, you can only feel so much from afar.

I don’t know what your days are like now, if the exhaustion finally broke you. Maybe even you are now afar.

But I wouldn’t know that anymore.

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Union Station Marilyn McGowan, M2020 Photo 7

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Bagan Michael Paolini, M2021 Photo

ARTS & MEDICINE

Maasai Mara Sunrise Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo

Light in the Tunnel Michael Paolini, M2021 Photo 9

SCOPE Vol. 3

Ebb and Flow Nellie Darling, M2021

A glint of light steals across the sky, chasing ripples with mischievous gait.

Escaping down into the dark, the wisp of warmth waits.

But Wind raises up rebellious Star, obedient to the envious Moon, intertwined lovers, torn apart Wave’s power – grounded too soon.

Nudged by an impatient breeze, Star tiptoes in, reluctant to wake the sleeping Wave.

Stirring surge, eager trouble always ready to misbehave.

Willful, thrashing breaker seemingly foiled by distance and earthly bonds, Fights. Unyielding to lunar pull, an elemental tug of war, not yet ready to abscond.

Stray too close, slamming sound and fury, a startled swell.

Beaming sphere frightened in retreat.

Patience, waters, or else early farewell.

Little laps at light’s fringe, teasing caress of glowing shore.

Foam and follow, wanting to play curious still, draws in for more…

Wave’s rocking embrace, whirling toss, enfold, then leap from peak to trough.

A moonlit dance in night so deep.

Gliding smoothly on the surface, ignore Wind’s murmur of warning, Star’d rather streak ‘cross Wave’s rise and fall ‘til morning.

Sweeping sand, rush of Wind light wrestles to stay on slippery slopes Waves’ protest, wild and raw whitewashed froth and dashed hopes.

Matched in strength, a stalemate of sorts, create the ever constant ebb and flow, of currents cried and the changing tides.

A labor of love sparked long ago.

Yet far up above, silent and still, lays our Star stuck in the skies.

Unwilling to sacrifice her watery Romeo, Finally, a compromise.

Lonely by day, Moon’s companion Star agrees to stay.

But under veil of night, constellations abound.

Star’s reflection is free to take flight.

Back to the sea, back to the Waves Simple gift of time is all that Moon gave.

Shooting stars and bright, bursts of color set the waters aflame the rest of their nights.

Coming into Port Michael Paolini, M2021 Photo

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Grand Canyon and Milky Way Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo

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Swirling Sculpture Meher Saleem, M2022 Ceramics

Curves Meher Saleem, M2022 Ceramics 12

ARTS & MEDICINE

Pygmalion

Erin McDonough, M2021

I walk about his shop, lightly trailing my fingertips along the smooth stone figures as I walk amongst them. He doesn’t like me to touch his work, but I can’t see that my tracing fingers will do much damage, if he can take a chisel to the blocks and just start chipping away without the whole piece falling to bits. And in any event, I can’t help it. I find it fascinating, the fleshy forms pulled out of the inflexible stone. I find it impossible to believe that I was once such an unyielding thing. Now, all I can remember is yielding. But so he formed me.

The white marble is my favorite; perhaps I retain some affection for my essence. But I cannot remember being stone. I wonder if I simply had no feeling before, or if I have just forgotten—like a baby who has no memory of his mother’s womb. I touch the statues, and I think that perhaps they can sense me. Maybe they can think and feel, looking out from their stone encasements. But no, they are not trapped in the stone—they are stone.

My husband speaks differently of the marble. He says that the figures are already inside the block; he merely finds them. He says this is true—he says that this was true of me, too. I was trapped in stone, and he found my form, worked my likeness from the marble in the greatest imitation of life possible. Yet even less than my ability to remember being a statue is my capability of imagining myself as a rough-cut block of stone. And before that, what was I? A part of the mountain?

A white vein running through the hills of Greece? I cannot look up at the cliffs, immense, unfeeling, and believe that I take any part from them. I cannot understand. The stone seems so distant. The marble, to me, seems less like myself than the one who molded it. Though he may claim to have only drawn me out, I cannot see that it as so. Nor can I truly believe that he created me. I am not my own, true. Of that I am perfectly sure. How can I be my own, when I have no memories outside of him? How can I doubt that I am his, when waking to life, his arms were already about me, his lips from the first searching to press against mine? Laid out on his couch as I was, arrayed in all the lilies and pearls and draperies of Tyrian purple that he’d bestowed on me, he was the first thing I saw. As I lifted my eyes to the light for the first time, my unused senses made out, before all other things, his dark silhouette against the brightness of the sky. It is strange, to be less my own than his, but as I have seen, such is the custom in these parts; no wife here is any more her own than I am. And in my case, at least, it is eminently fair that it should be so. If Pygmalion gave me being, why should he not claim me? But still, I feel it is not quite right. For he gave birth to a statue, and though he made me so that any viewer must surely suppose me alive and ready to move, even so, stone can only give the impression of motion. But I truly move. I change. I am stone no longer.

Day by day I change. I grow. And he claims some share in this growth, too. I grow and I think of the reason for my growth, and I say to myself, “it is not so strange that I do not remember any previous existence. It will be the same for my child. She will emerge with no recollection of anything. The nine months inside me will pass away into nothingness in her thoughts. And before that she cannot possibly recall.” But for her, for all mankind, there is nothing before. They get to start anew. But I did exist before my memories! Stone! I was stone? But how can I, weak as I now stand, own to that immovable material? It is as if a mere mortal claimed to be made of the stuff of stars. But such I am—I am the mighty mountain! I am the stuff of Mount Olympus, on which the gods tread! Perhaps that is how I gained blessed life; perhaps the gracious Venus’s step imbued my block of stone with the beauty that Pygmalion found therein. Perhaps my birth from marble was always intended, and I am not, then, like the other statues that he forms and dotes over.

But how it sickens me! To see him working, leaning over his creations, caressing away every blemish until they are right to be sold. To think that he paid such devotion to me, before I had consciousness, before I had the ability in maidenly modesty to push away his overly forward advances! To think, that he took from me any shred of privacy or modesty before I was even born to life! And now that I am alive, daily he grows less and less interested. Now that I change and grow, and carry his child, he looks less and less at me. He speaks of the baby to come, a strong son to carry on his name and craft, but the child’s mother is of increasingly less significance to him. He regrets now, I think, that his marble came to life; for the stature was beautiful and demure and of no trouble to him, neither eating nor moving about. But me, I am always a nuisance.

Always underfoot in the shop and never good enough in the house. But did he expect that all women be born knowing how to cook and clean and sew? When men have to learn even to walk? Even that I cannot do well enough for him. Surely, I am pretty enough in stillness—it is my natural element. But I am only clumsily adjusting to motion, and daily I worry that I will stumble, and falling, injure the child inside me. And I think, rather bitterly, that it would have been better had Pygmalion not been so proud of his own handiwork. For a woman born of woman would have made him a better wife than the thing he gave birth to.

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He gives birth to still creations, men and women who will stand forever unchanged, and he loves the perfection of them. Like the gods, his works are immortal. But the changing is imperfect—already I age! I am no longer one of them, those statues whose beauty and virtue will never diminish. But no—I never was one of them! I derived my existence in the moment his art was destroyed—I take none of my being from it. It was but an image then; now I think and move and breath. I am not his statue—of that I have no recollection. He did not make me, as I am now. Venus did. She created me when her will brought me to life. Pygmalion is but a man, incapable of bringing real life—did he not go to her, at her festival, laying upon her alter a snow white heifer and begging her in tremulous words to bring his cold, lifeless statue to being?

Was it not her will, that when he returned home he should find me softening under his fingers like beeswax under the sun?

Did Venus not give me my present form? I was not part of the mountain or carved from the rock. I was not the stone thing he caressed and touched. I am the person who, upon waking, found his body upon me. That was the start of my existence, and nothing he remembers of me before that is true. Though I might not be like other mortals, still I am mortal now.

And if he does not care for me as much as his immortal marble maiden, I care not. For that is his own pride crying; he does not like that I have taking my own form, separate from his making. He does not like that I move about and speak and am real. He wants to look at his own handiwork and admire himself, and so he stays in his shop with his other creations, doting upon them, and more in awe of himself than was Narcissus. He doesn’t like me to touch—perhaps he fears my selfhood will contaminate all his figures. So I walk through his statues when he is away, and with one hand on my belly, gently stroking the life therein, I gently lay the other hand on each one of them.

Dive Emilie Fortman, M2020 Colored Pencil 14

ARTS & MEDICINE Eye Marielle Mahan, M2019 Digital Drawing

Uterus Marielle Mahan, M2019 Digital 15

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Blue Mosque Adaah Sayyed, M2022 Ink Drawing 17

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Medical Elegy Benjamin Hack, M2022

1. Conceit On August thirtieth, I swore off neurosurgery.

The hours were too easy— I thought reading the news would suit me better.

Over the brittle headline,

pizza grease licked my hands until they were worn down from hard work.

One day, I’ll charge into a land where I am unwelcome

and demand fructose from scars.

Finding none, I’ll suture organs for those in need

of a routine physical, offer only metaphysicals, even Shakespeare for all his grandeur—...

Helen defined conceit: a comparison whose ingenuity is more striking than its justness.

Well, Helen, life is a stethoscope with several diaphragms and a bell,

none of which listen to the four cells of the beating prison. If I listened,

would that make me a wheel?

Dirt under me, carrying the load of some fisherman’s

breath? Someone must have taught him to die. We all learn it somewhere; the question is when.

The answer is: grandpa or television, whichever goes first.

On August the twenty-ninth,

I swore neurosurgery was my destiny.

So was Death, but she is so quiet I can barely taste her.

Anyway, Helen, She is a compass.

And who am I to believe in magnetism

or the changing of poles?

Madonna and Child Erin McDonough, M2021 Digital Drawing

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ARTS & MEDICINE 2. Embryology My grandmother smoked a pack and knew her way around a wine.

Embryo derives from the Latin term for the Greek phrase for ancient history.

Even today, my entire family line ponders the mysterious fifth pharyngeal arch.

If you look down the pedigree, you’ll find several generations with incomplete alleles.

Allele (ә'lēl/): alternative forms of the same sense of humor. God is laughing.

What are phonetics for, anyway?— The tongue is underdeveloped for communication.

The teacher swore his mother would live a century, swore like a sailor she would die.

He pointed at the screen to preach this is where we came from.

A bundle of cells is as much me as my grandfather.

His mustache is ashes now — Worse. Dust.

Does perversion die or become part of Everything?...

From my mouth to God’s tears. Even the Creator needs a release.

From cells we are born and to cells we are bound to return.

My teacher once told me the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

To which I responded, No, capitalism is and he looked at me like I was a shark.

The other children chuckled communally. Little socialists, ready to laugh at anything.

Fertilization occurs in the ampular region of the throat. No wonder you’re choked up.

If you asked God, God would advise you to cry.

The Universe would shove its fingers down your esophagus.

My grandparents were never born — — — I know I was conceived in a rainstorm because I was sleeping a floor below.

Speaking of, I attended a birth recently. The decorations were drab, all blue and sterile.

Baby was no one special, came out blabbing away about gastrulation.

Gastrulation (/͵gastrә'leı∫(ә)n/): The process by which we form layers.

When the Universe heard the child, the Universe answered with silence.

We all come from somewhere, God added... ... ...

Blue-eyed, the child reminded me of my teacher, who was in the room.

That, he looked disgusted at the mother, is where we all came from.

I think he was expecting a bundle of cells, like a fisherman who catches a shark.

Celiac Trunk Erin McDonough, M2021 Digital Drawing

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SCOPE Vol. 3 3. Hybridization Don’t mistake an interest in ends for cynicism. Means justify the ends: Death, an end; Birth, mean; Life, hybrid — Point and counterpoint: the pain on your mother’s face; her facelessness.

News headline: “““Don’t Believe Cynicism”””” Easily mistake hardened for heartened. No coincidence there, phonetics.

If you don’t laugh at death, does your moral compass need calibration?

If you do, does it not?

Another failure of semantics.

Or, ““An Unlikely Success””: Poles soften souls often.

The tongue is impossible to contract. Watch: God is getting defensive.

Universe blinks rhetorically.

Helen, what do you say?

Nothing.

How conveniently metaphysical.

Teacher? Anything in response? We all come from the same cell. You know that.

We hold ourselves accountable; We play with death and call it life— You know that; You only think in disingenuous comparison.

Your organelles are showing — — Little capitalists, charging energy for arousal.

In that sense, they hybridize.

Hybrid ('hī͵brid): ,,a mixture of elements.’’

Element ('elәmәnt): even its pronunciation can’t be changed. Definition nebulous.

Thirty first of August. End of a lineage.

Death calls hoarsely, is left unheard. Birth coos sweetly.

Helen,,, where is life in all this? Life is — An aphorism.

Phonetics slay the reaper.

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<<

Opposite: Cherry Blossoms and Neurons Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo

Iris Dave Mohebbi, M2022 Photo

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SCOPE Vol. 3 Primary Emily Lai, M2020 Watercolor and Ink

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Hidden Gems (Below) Michael Paolini, M2021 Photo

Untitled (Above) Dylan Conroy, M2019 Photo

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The Metaphysical Exam Ben Hack, M2022

Move your arm to your left shoulder,

cross your chest and hope to live.

Now I’m inspecting your ego.

Checks out. No inflation.

For the eye portion,

introversion. Filled checkbox there.

Head up, I’ll look inside

your cavities. Spelunk into mucosa.

Range of motion is limited to 100 degrees

celsius. Your tongue is boiling. Moving on.

Check check check, like a chicken

head without a body. Upon inspection, you’re intact.

Twist your neck for me. Yes, all the way around.

Always remember to exorcise. Check your own heart rate.

Your reflexes are irrelevant. I’ll check them thoroughly.

The most basic of instincts.

Can you please lift your left breast? Underneath

you have a chamber. We tend to forget.

Let me just write this down: check.

Your pulse is fast— Impactful.

Look at me in the eyes. You’ve forgotten how?

Follow me following my finger.

Upon inspection, you’re human.

So I deduced from your blind faith.

Thank you, your body has been of use

to society. I’ll tell the attending of your sacrifice.

Before you leave, I forgot to mention

you might have an infection on your lips. Quick kiss.

You should probably get that checked out.

Check.

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Hand Marielle Mahan, M2019 Colored Pencil

Biliary tree Marielle Mahan, M2019 Digital Drawing

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Elementary Kyle Luvisa & Peter Wirth, M2020 Acrylic Paint on Canvas 26

Loneliness is an A**hole

ARTS & MEDICINE ARTS

Osher Shefer, M2022

I used to love Loneliness.

I used to lay warm under the blanket of silence that Loneliness cloaked over me.

Used to love the peace of mind that came with knowing I was by myself, with nobody else.

The strength Loneliness gave me was one of confidence and self-love, knowing I was capable of getting through without anybody else Loneliness may have been driving away.

But now, Loneliness won’t leave me alone.

He’s taunting me.

He’s crawling in under that warm blanket and he’s pressing up against my back with his cold chest.

Loneliness greets me every morning with his silence that I used to love so deeply, mocking me with every unuttered word.

When its 3 am and I’m sitting underneath the stars, Loneliness is there too, looking up, wondering if there is Loneliness just like him up there somewhere in the darkness.

Loneliness is a darkness.

With dark skin and dark hair strong enough to strangle, eyes dark and deep enough to drown in.

The kind of darkness that sucks the light from everything around it.

The kind of darkness that makes your eyes hurt and your head ache, draining your heart like a leaky pipe, tactfully insidious.

Frozen in Time Nellie Darling, M2021 Photo

To Drip or Not to Drip Nelllie Darling, M2021 Photo 27

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Full Plate Brian Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Doherty Photo

Schwedagon Michael Paolini, M2021 Photo 28

Magnifying Glass Umar Khan, M2020 Photo

ARTS & MEDICINE

“Small Foods Party” In a celebration of the art of food, Baltimore holds an annual celebration of Tiny Edibles. The 2018 winners of both the Golden Toothpick Award and the overall Grand Prize included Georgetown School of Medicine’s very own Abi Norwood and Erica Menino (class of 2020), along with Ryan Norwood, Kaitlyn Peot, and Nick DeChillo. Their entry was titled “Panda Compressed.”

“Panda Compressed is a play on the American-Chinese take-out food that we all know by its iconic boxes. We added a Baltimore touch to our design by putting the Patterson Park Pagoda on our boxes. The food included a mini mug of oolong tea, General Tso chicken, vegetarian egg rolls, and teeny fortunes cookies with even tinier fortunes inside. Our goal was to create something quirky, unique, and tasty!”

General Tso Chix & Egg Rolls (Below) Brian O’Doherty Photo

Take-Out Box (Above) Brian O’Doherty Photo

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Study of You

Song Lyrics by Nellie Darling, M2021 you’ve got a flickering grin and welcome eyes you try to frame a smile in the cereal aisle ripples of words come out in a song it’s a tight dark ridge shape a sturdy core and beneath your feet there’s a fervent roar I keep a notebook stashed in my lab coat pocket I’m in a study of you I work the night shift weekends too nothing intrigues me as much as the evidence of a memory of you you like your pencils sharp and your coffee bold and before my eyes you let your mind unfold I keep a petri dish on my desk for anomalies in case this experiment goes south or I run out of things to learn I can pour what is left in a beaker and in a great explosion, I will watch all the particles burn I’m in a study of you I work the night shift weekends too nothing intrigues me as much as the evidence of a memory of you

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Untitled Katherine Wikholm, M2019 Watercolor 31

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Captions - Shiprock Johan Clarke, M2019

The first time around I missed the turn off to Ten Mile Mesa. It was one of the places all the docs told me to go when I first got there.

I had flown for seven hours and drove for four yesterday and hadn’t really seen another person in what felt like days. I felt like the last person on earth though I knew that thinking fueled colonialism and I tried to stop it. They told me that one of the patients own the land and they have been invited to use it any time so every Thursday in the summer they drive a truck to the top and have a barbeque.

I didn’t know where to park but the directions say leave the car anywhere so I left it halfway down the road. I ran straight for a long time and tried running up the mesa but the altitude made it hard for oxygen to get to my brain so I walked up some. At the top I FaceTime’d my mom to show her how far I’ve come but really it was so I could feel less lonely. The sun went behind another mesa as I got back to my car. The opposite sky was violet as the sun set. …

I parked a half mile from the trail head. I was already nervous about my rental car making it this far on the potholes on the dirt road, I didn’t want to risk adding snow to the mix. The birch trees reminded me of Finland as I walked through mystical passageways of pine.

I looked for Stevie’s reflection in the snow covered hills but only found animal tracks criss crossing the slopes. I had been wearing the same clothes for three days and hadn’t showered in two as the hot water hadn’t worked. Erin introduced herself on the way up. She told me she recently moved to Denver but wishes she wasn’t living in a city any longer. She only went to the lower lake and was almost finished with her hike. The sun shines stronger in Colorado. I noticed it when I visited Tomas in Denver last November. At this time of year she barely passes the peaks and the north facing slopes are still covered in ice. The blue lakes look gray when frozen. The air has the rustic winter smell of decaying reeds rising from melting snow on the lake shore. It gives the comforting reminder of death.

The slopes surrounding the lakes were green according to images on hiking blogs. The alien sound of bubbles from a melting lake in the warm noon sun echoed off the rock face around the basin. Mount Sneffels had stalagmites growing up towards the summit. I thought maybe I could climb to the top but the pass was too treacherous. Someone had camped at the lakes last night. When I passed him we both worried the other was a bear. The packed in snow that turned into ice made the down going slower. Erin’s number was waiting for me on the back of a receipt tucked under my windshield wiper. I haven’t decided if I’m going to text her. I don’t know what I would say. Nights are darker here. It’s then I feel loneliest. I ate thai food in a separate room all alone facing a wall of crocheted roses.

I got drunk on two beers at a brewery as I finished Jennifer Egan’s latest. I texted my mom about it. …

The trees along the San Juan were ablaze by the time Anna and I were back from Red Valley. We both assumed it was a controlled fire to clear out some of the dead wood along the bank. The oranges and reds reflected the colors we saw in the desert. Between Roof Butte and Canyon de Chelly I asked her to pull over on the side of the road to explore an expanse of red rock. We had been slowly cruising down hairpins as we left the Chuska Mountains and almost missed stopping there. I had never seen a mountain so bright before. It radiated compared to the endless expanse of brown and green on the opposite eastern slope. Standing on the top of Roof Butte below the satellite towers I was afraid I was going to be blown off the edge and fall forever in the endless valley below. Under these rocks I felt much more grounded even if the ground looked so different from any earth I had seen before. Canyon de Chelly had similar colors but there was more of a mixture. There were yellow leaves on the trees dead for winter and there were white cliff faces that we gawked up at from the fence that surrounded the remains of a village from a thousand years ago. I had never seen a canyon before and we hiked to the bottom walking on rocks that looked like auburn frozen waves. We had tried to watch the sunset from the southern rim but it was colder than we expected and we both wanted to get home at a reasonable time. She asked if I could drive home because she was driving out so I gladly took the hairpins up and down the mountain in the dark. You couldn’t see a single star because the

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Opposite: Untitled Kellie Wo, M2021 Ink drawing Saddle Road John Guzzi, M2019 Photo

Opposite, top right: Five Men on the Ridge John Guzzi, M2019 Photo 32

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moon was so bright. You could see the shadow of Shiprock as you drove past it. She saw the smoke before we could smell it. I had held wild sagebrush in my nose earlier for a long while but the smell of the burning wood was surprisingly nice. …

The diner we went to for brunch had John 3:16 on the cover of every menu. Anna picked the place because the internet said it was the best place for breakfast in Cortez. We all got the same, chile verde omelette, but all got different sides. The outdoor sports store owner said Anna could borrow a pair of climbing shoes if she’s only in town for another couple of days. She didn’t need the shoes, she just needed to know the size. All three of us had been on the East coast for some time and were not used to polite conversation just for the sake of it. We couldn’t find a ruin when we first noticed a spur and instead climbed along edges to get closer to mushroom rocks on what we thought was the trail. I almost fell because my backpack was so fat and was pushing me off the side. For a moment I thought about what my life would be like for the months after falling and how I would figure out the years after when they came to it. As we kept walking we found better ruins that we could get right up to. On the way up we told each other riddles and the idioms of our fathers. It got too hot on the switchbacks so I took my sweater off. We were worried about time when we got to the top and only found a pueblo ruin you could barely make out. On the way back down Anna taught us trail games she used to play with her family. “Hinkity pinkity. The difficulty in helping people. Slant rhyme.” Charity scarcity. We were all three burnt by the bottom and the last sun rays caressed Sleeping Ute. Rostam played as we drove past her silhouette. An hour after sunset you can see the slightest sliver of deep blue while above you the stars start shining. We went home to decorate cookies with the doctors and I tried to make a Finnish flag on a reindeer and the New Mexico flag on Shiprock. I ate my second slice of cheesecake for the weekend and a puppy gnarled on my ankle. …

I’m not ready to talk about leaving Shiprock yet. Sad country music played in my car for the minute it took me to get to the gas station. The same station was playing as I bought over the counter ranitidine for a gastric ulcer that came out of the lingering end of a severe migraine. The road through Arizona is very straight and very long. Everything is mostly flat as Sleeping Ute continued to linger in the background. I sped past Baby Rocks and felt some regret not stopping there but continued through miles of nothing and beauty. You give $20 to the Navajo Nation to enter into Monument Valley. The brochure says to give gratuity to any farmers you take pictures of. There was a lot of the same flora as near Shiprock and a lot of the same rock too. There was cliff rose not in bloom and Mormon tea with no leaves left.

There weren’t any tourists in Shiprock other than me in a sense. A crow shrieked when I got out of my car to look at the gift shop. They sold the same crafts I bought at the flea market but here they were much more expensive. They had cowboy hats so you could pretend to be John Wayne and do white family tourist things in this sacred Navajo land. I still have never seen a John Wayne movie but I still wanted to see Monument Valley. There are so many different blues in the sky. It’s almost white near the horizon as the farthest rays reach there.

The West Mitten Butte changed shape from each angle. I could feel how soft the sand was through my heavy boots. When I got back I read the plaques on the atrocities colonists have committed in this space. I bought a sampler of incense I thought my dad would like to burn.

A rez dog came and lay in the shade of my car as I ate some trail mix to make the gnawing pain of my stomach digesting itself go away. On my way to Page I stopped and looked at Navajo Mountain in the setting sun. Have you ever seen a purple sky? ...

I never thought I would ever get to the Grand Canyon. I never thought I would ever really see a desert. I freaked out when I saw my first tumbleweed. I stop at every naturally growing cacti I see. I thought the whole southwest was all like Williams, which feels like a

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SCOPE Vol. 3 simulacrum of road trips from the 1950s. Every building has “Route 66” outside it. It feels like Cracker Barrel in town form but it’s close to the Grand Canyon so I decided to stay there. I had almost run over a family of deer right after paying thirty dollars to get in.

I jumped out of my car as soon as I could to see it. The sun hadn’t completely lit the canyon and you could barely see the North Rim through the mist. I knew that it was massive but I didn’t know it could go on like this. Multiple people had stopped their cars in the middle of the road to take a photo of deer. Being from the east coast that was the only unsurprising thing about the canyon. The rock changed the deeper I went. The white layer of Coconino sandstone from 275 million years ago eventually gave way to the red Supai group, turning the dirt salmon when mixing. When the trail got very narrow I felt dizzy trying not to look down. At the bottom of the North Rim when I could see it the base had the look of falling sands frozen same as New Mexico but larger and going on forever.

Rockslides kept interrupting the trail and I almost slid into the canyon. As the sun went higher the greens of the yucca and cacti grew stronger. When I first saw the river I got so excited I pointed it out to no one. I ate an apple on what I thought was Yuma Point. Anna told me about it excitedly the first time I met her. I got back up earlier than I expected so I hiked the rim trail waiting for sunset. The late beams from the near sun gave a blue haze throughout the canyon. Everyone was asking for photos but without someone with me I didn’t feel pressured to take a posed photo. I saw the same Australian couple from yesterday but didn’t say hi and they didn’t either. …

The first moment I truly asked myself what the hell I was doing was on the shuttle to the car rental center in the Albuquerque airport.

I had no idea what I was doing. I had no connection to this land or the patients I was going to work with. I was incredibly lonely at first. The long nights made the isolation in my barren room even worse. Eventually I felt more comfortable and was second guessing myself less. Eventually I met people and got along really well. Eventually I started exploring the area with Anna and going to book club with the physicians. I didn’t think I was going to like working in a rural area but now I’m thinking how I’m going to go back after residency. There were some red flags. On my drive to Flagstaff I passed a Smart car with a pro-gun bumper sticker on it. In Phoenix I went to a bar and had a nice meal and went to see an independent movie. In Flagstaff I went to my first local coffee shop in a month and ate a breakfast sandwich at an elementary school desk-cum-table. Could I live without this stuff throughout my thirties?

Shiprock used to have a coffee shop and art space, but it didn’t last. I learned about this from one of the artists I met at the art walk the physicians hosted in their homes. And for the things I would be giving up there are the things I would be gaining. There would be the birches and the mountains and the hiking and miles upon miles of open space. On the top of Humphrey’s Point I listened to Sprawl II and Hyper-Ballad and looked out at the flat and the hills and the false sense of emptiness. After I drove my car into the car rental return parking lot in Phoenix I patted the trunk in the view of an employee and said goodbye. I had already said goodbye to Anna and Farnoosh and the physicians and the house spouses and the nurses and the PAs and the other people at the hospital and the patients and the people I lived around. I’m about to go on two red eyes in a row and cross a continent and an ocean and I’m a little nervous about that but I’ll get to be with family and I’ll get to be with friends and I’ll get to mime my home mountains and unpack.

Nathan

Rocky Mountain Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo 34

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Gandhi Colin Wikholm, M2021 Graphite 35

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Untitled Katherine Wikholm, M2019 Watercolor 36

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Lighthouse Katherine Wikholm, M2019 Watercolor

Untitled Katherine Wikholm, M2019 Watercolor 37

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Anatomy Lessons Matt Williams, M2020

Lungs Karin Collins, M2020 Acrylic Paint

On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in early October, John and I stood in the windowless anatomy lab, surveying our body. As anatomy TAs, we had been tasked with dissecting this body to use as a model for our classmates. Our donor body was an older male. His head, hands, and feet were covered by black bags, but we could see light blue tattoos on his arms, their original design and coloring warped by the passage of decades. As the smell of formaldehyde permeated the room, we looked at the cadaver with whom we’d be spending the next six months. We put off the imminent dissection by debating what we should name him. We settled on “Floyd.” The specter of spending more time than necessary in the anatomy lab finally broke our reverie, and we set to work.

As the weeks went by, the enormity of working with a human body faded into macabre meniality as we labored to find hundreds of structures, using scalpels, scissors, and fingers.

“Deep branch of the radial artery…found it!”

“Be careful not to cut the cephalic vein on that side.”

“Ok, let’s flip Floyd over and look for the rhomboids.”

Floyd was full of surprises, and more than once shocked me out of my mechanistic approach to anatomy. At times, he seemed alive. One Sunday night when John and I were both in the lab, we heard a faint alarm. “Wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo.” Puzzled, we walked through several rooms and into the hallway, but we couldn’t locate the source. When it stopped a few minutes later, we dismissed it and continued working.

The next weekend, I was the only living human in the lab late at night. I tried to ignore that fact as I diligently worked on dissecting Floyd’s pectoralis major and minor. I noticed a lump on his left chest, and after digging with my scalpel, extracted a silver metal rectangle the size of a lighter – the pulse generator of a pacemaker. For a moment, I felt like Indiana Jones, extracting a treasure. That triumph was replaced by fear a moment later when the pacemaker began to blare the same alarm that John and I had heard the previous week. Except this time it was about ten times louder. My sympathetic nervous system activated, I chose to flee into the next room, mind running wild with thoughts of an impending zombie onslaught heralded by this discordant alarm. After seeing no movement from the body bags, I advanced back into the room, scalpel in hand. Realizing that trying to cut through electrified metal with a metal scalpel wasn’t the best idea and out of other options, I gave up on trying to turn the alarm off. A short time later, it stopped on its own. After that, the alarm felt like Floyd saying hello. Every four hours, his pacemaker would go off. I’d hear the familiar beeping from another room or out in the hall and tell the person that I was with, “Oh, it’s just Floyd.”

The surprises continued coming. One day, after scraping metal with my scalpel, I found spring-like sutures in his abdomen holding synthetic mesh to his rectus abdominus muscle. Floyd had an abdominal aortic aneurysm so large that I thought he had a third kidney after discovering it. When I cut it open, I pulled out a blood clot the size of my fist, and 38

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Neck Preethi Venkat, M2020 Ink Drawing

saw two stents placed within the vessel itself. In March, I had my final day with Floyd. After digging around to find the infuriatingly small anterior and posterior branches of the internal iliac artery, I washed my tools and hung up my heavy black lab apron, grateful to be trading it in for shorts and sunglasses. As I walked out of lab that day, I didn’t give Floyd a second thought.

A few months after the final lab, I went to an obituary writing event organized by my friend, Bethany. A short time after the event, Bethany contacted me and asked if I would be interested in writing an obituary for one of the donors. I was paired at random with a donor’s family, not knowing which body corresponded to the family I would be talking to. I found myself talking to a sweet, middle-aged woman named Claire on the phone. I had done some research the night before on her father, Robert, who had donated his body. I read about his time in the Army during World War II, and his subsequent educational and work history. He was a graduate of Harvard, with degrees in engineering and operations, who had gone on to work for aircraft and weather forecasting companies.

Claire told me about her father’s life. She recounted how he loved baking and opened a small bakery after he retired. She told me that the love of baking skipped a generation, since neither she nor her sisters took up her father’s passion, but her nephew loved to work in the bakery with Grandpa Rob. Robert loved to swim and was in the pool two weeks before he passed away at the age of 92. Robert donated his body because his mother had donated hers as well. He was passionate about education and wanted to help educate others, even after his death. Claire spoke about her father’s health problems as well: chronic hypertension, a pacemaker, two stents, and something called “Triple A.” Claire told me that she would send me an email with more information, including her sister’s eulogy for her father.

After I hung up with her, I opened my email to read the eulogy. Claire’s sister spoke about her father’s strict household and organizational skills, but she contrasted that with his dad-isms, including “not right this purple minute” and “when liverwurst becomes liverwurst,” and his sense of humor. Robert would catch his daughters giggling about something and ask them if they had gotten into the “giggle pills,” sending them into another fit of laughter. The day before Robert passed away, his daughters were gathered by his bedside in the hospital laughing along with their father.

As I sat in the warm April sunlight, I felt a growing realization. I quickly Googled “Triple A” to find out it stands for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. Then I knew. The tattoos were from his Army days. The stents and the pacemaker…Floyd was Robert.

Just like his mother, Robert continued to educate after his death. He showed me that while your purpose doesn’t have to end in death, it also doesn’t have to start there. Robert was more than a bunch of arteries, nerves, and muscles.

Robert had a family, a career, and a life outside of the anatomy lab. He refinished furniture for his antique shop, he raised three daughters who then had children of their own, and he made people laugh.

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Hands

Erin McDonough, M2021 When I feel on my hands the oil and clay and sweat and wood dust, caked in like a second skin— what I feel with those hands I trust.

Those hands captured color, built, molded my life out of clay.

Those hands: useful, feeling, strong.

Until water washes them out into something Sterile and mundane.

I clean my hands and go thus out into the world.

Someday covered in paint and terpenoid or else in pumpkin guts and blood, I’ll sit and think, I made that— I did that.

Not with my thoughts abstracted but with these two hands.

Untitled Dylan Conroy, M2019 Photo

But now I think as I must, shower as I must, and feel it all wash off— feel that clean that’s too clean, Squeaky Clean— and fresh, and cold, And wonder, what happened to those hands that were mine?

In the Garden Erin McDonough, M2021 Copper Plate Print 40

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Grasping at Light Erin McDonough, M2021 Digital Drawing

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Pathway to My Future Megan O’Brien, M2020

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Doors open, doors closed each patient needing more sifting through for answers Signs and symptoms to explore

“My brothers were shot I don’t want to live” “I’ve tried and tried I have nothing left to give”

Voices in her head saying, she doesn’t deserve to live Diagonal cuts, on her arms, she has nothing left to give

Body and mind broken Family shattered, alone The crushing reality No support or home

The voices getting louder, urging her to cut Perhaps jump into traffic, take a gun to her gut

Every story is different the walls never talk I collect my thoughts and prepare the next steps as I walk

The pendulum swings from highs to lows Depression and mania is all that she knows

The door is opened Rage stops me in my tracks Poor impulse control isn’t all that he lacks

She pleads, “someone help,” as images surround the room The doctor says they aren’t real, even with medicine they still loom

To fight his demons, he yells and demands punching the walls with his bleeding, bruised hands

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He contemplates lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s purpose will God show him the way The walls closing in I stand in the doorway We navigate real and unreal Celebrating each thread of hope Opening doors with therapy Guiding ways to cope The weight of their stories I shoulder each step with pride We pass over the threshold together side by side

Cherry Blossoms Rabia Mirza, M2021 Acrylic Paint

Swiss Alps Nathanael Lee, MD/PhD Candidate Photo 43

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Reflections on a Medical Mission Trip Vian Zada, M2021

The dirt road through the village is uneven and narrow— it permits two-way travel but is not wide enough to allow vehicles to pass one another. Chickens sit high in the tree branches, a mother pig and her young poke their noses through the long grasses. A cow rests in the shade of a passionfruit tree, the tree teeming with ripe fruit that will soon be picked by the neighborhood kids. When the darkness of night arrives, there will be no streetlamps, only the light of the moon and stars. A radio is playing from the porch of an elderly man. He plays the same station everyday as he looks out from his chair. It is hard to imagine that his generation survived one of the bloodiest dictatorships of the Americas.

El Puerto resides high in the mountains, surrounded by rolling green hills. Doors around this campo are left unlocked, and open to both neighbors and visitors. Mornings are greeted with the smell of coffee beans roasting on open pits and the persistent crow of roosters. There are two public buildings: a church, and a school that is closed for the summer. As the community lacks running water and access to the national power grid, the majority of residents rely on kerosene lamps and wells to fill buckets of water.

The remoteness of the campo, combined with its struggling economy, leave few options for health care. Transportation to the nearest city is difficult and expensive.

Summer Nights in El Puerto Griselda Potka, M2020 Photo

When our group arrives we are greeted with hugs and hand-drawn banderas of both the DR and the USA. Children are dressed up, dancing to the merengue. A cultural exchange is already underway. The cooperador introduces us to the campo residents—our families and neighbors for the next month. They are also our patients.

Dr. Carretero, the medical director of the Institute of Latin American Concern (ILAC), gives us a few pointers for patient interviews. He tells us that the Dominicans are very affectionate. “Mamita, como se siente?” is more appropriate than “How are you doing, Ms. Smith?” And it is best to prescribe medications taken in the “morning” or “evening” rather than at specific hours, as many patients don’t have a way to tell time. Some patients won’t know that they suffer from “azucar”—30-40% of the Dominican population suffers from diabetes, owing in part to a high-starch diet. Refrigeration requirements for insulin, as well as a nation-wide shortage of primary care providers, compounds the challenge of diabetes management. Antibiotics are commonly, and often inappropriately, self-prescribed. Patients who require referrals to specialists through ILAC should expect an average wait-time of one year.

Urban healthcare in the Dominican Republic faces different challenges. While there is electricity and running water in the cities, it is not unusual for babies to be caught with newspaper at their birth. Residents bring their own sheets for patient bedding. Meals are not provided to patients, leaving this responsibility to family and visitors. During power

* Campo: village, rural farming area

* “Cooperadores de Salud”: health promoter, selected by the community

* Gripe: anything that could possibly go wrong; common cold, headache, congestion, sore-throat 44

ARTS & MEDICINE ILAC Center Erin McDonough, M2021 Digital Drawing

shortages, sutures are placed by the light of cellphones. I asked medical director Dr. Marcel at Juan Bosch Trauma Center about his thoughts on international assistance. To him, volunteer surgical missions are the most valuable, as monetary aid is often lost to corruption.

In the northern outskirts of Santiago lies the barrio of Cienfuegos, a settlement adjacent to the city’s landfill. Dominicans and Haitian refugees are considered squatters on the land, and are essentially ignored by the city. The groundwater here is not clean, and respiratory ailments are common among the residents. As our van drives through the neighborhood, kids smile and wave at us. They’re left to their own devices for the day, spending most of it scavenging through the waste for food, toys, and furniture.

The warm, clear blue waters of this Caribbean island paradise seem muddied with the injustices suffered by its people. And yet we find that everywhere in the DR, in spite of the poverty, there is an abundance of love and joy. As Dr. Torres says, “La verdad nunca es absoluta sólo relativa a la capacidad de entendimiento del observador”—”the truth is never universal or absolute, and is only relative to the observer’s capacity for understanding”. In that same vein, Western medicine is only one approach to healing— there is so much of the human spirit that we can neither work-up nor quantify.

It underscores our responsibility to open our hearts and see each other, and to perhaps believe in something greater than ourselves. * “Cienfuegos”: 100 Fires

* Mangú: plantain puree

* Un “chin”/ un “chin-chin” : a little / a very little

* Con-con: overcooked rice at the bottom of the pail 45

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This all started with a passing comment in anatomy lab. As you all know, Gross Anatomy is notorious for long hours on one’s feet in a formaldehyde laden room, often tucked away in a basement. It is a rite of passage for medical students. One day a classmate offhandedly said: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could spruce this place up a bit and make it a place you want to spend more time?” Another joked, “you mean a fresh coat of paint?” … “or some color?” … “how about a mural?”

Before

Our hope with this project was to impart a few messages to the future classes of GUSOM as they pass through this hallway. Our ideas were all grounded in the Jesuit ideal of cura personalis, care of the whole person, in this case our “patient” and ourselves. First, we wanted them to feel a sense of belonging here on this hilltop, specifically how beautiful this campus is at sunset. Second, it serves as a reminder of the truly sacred gift of our donors. I will never forget the first time I held a heart in my hands. It was extraordinarily humbling to touch the life source of a body and it motivated me to go study to be worthy of that privilege. Lastly, we wanted to give students a meaningful reminder to breathe, to have fun, and to make time for oneself through all the various “elements” of self-care.

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After

ARTS & MEDICINE I am incredibly proud to be part of a class of students that when faced with a problem, be it a snag with the curriculum or a hallway in need of a facelift, we come up with a solution and we make it happen. Our final product exceeded even our own expectations and is a prime illustration of how real teamwork has not just an additive effect, but a synergistic one.

While we initially started out with three individual panels to showcase our artists’ unique artistic styles, that plan quickly faded. It became obvious that our contributors cared less about obtaining credit for their own work, and more about the cohesive, collective product we could create as a team. It was a powerful moment when I heard my classmates set aside things like pride and ego, which we artistic-types can sometimes have a reputation for, and say “here’s my idea – how would you all make it better?”

To me, this is the real power of incorporating the arts into medical education – learning how much more we can accomplish if we work together. If this mural is any indication of how my fellow Hoyas will be as physicians, then I’d say the future is pretty bright.

Nellie Darling, M2021

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W

About Arts & Medicine

e are an organization run by and for Georgetown University medical students with the goal of integrating the arts into student life and medical education at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

We strive to bring the Jesuit concept of magis, or “doing more,” to life. We hope to enhance the patient experience through meaningful, therapeutic arts outreach initiatives. We encourage the professional formation of physicians equipped to practice cura personalis, or “care of the whole person.” We communicate a medical professional’s unique perception of a shared human experience. We celebrate and promote the diversity of creative talent at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and Medical Center.

In addition to Scope, our programs include: • Hippocrates Cafe: frequent open mic events featuring student and faculty talent • Music & Medicine volunteer trips with the pediatric patients at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and IONA senior services • “What Makes You…”: we partner with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to bring a night of spoken word, skits, film, photography, dance, music, visual art, and other art forms to celebrate the talent, diverse experiences, and community at Georgetown University School of Medicine • Live music fundraisers • Reflective photography campaigns • Mural Project to reinvigorate the anatomy hallway through art • Obituary writing workshop for first year students to reflect on their experiences in anatomy lab • Student workshops that encourage creativity and reflection centered on everyday encounters

Caduceus Karen Schirm, M2020 Acrylic Paint

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