Ascensus IX

Ascensus

Ascensus

of Humanities

Ascensus

Co-Directors

Events Team

Alana Dinh

Ryka Sehgal

Editorial Team

Steven Pan

Jade Wang

Advisors

Susan Ball, MD, MPH, MS Randi Diamond, MD Allison Lasky

Quincy Leon

With special thanks to the Liz Claiborne Center for Humanism in Medicine and support from the WCM Office of Academic Affairs

Contact wcm.ascensus@gmail.com with submissions or questions

To Our Readers:

In these past few months, it seems as though the world has shifted beneath our feet. A pandemic. Reckonings with our country’s past and present. Grief in its many forms. And during these tumultuous times, we’ve seen our lives change. Our plans, our futures, and the paths we had once so carefully laid out for ourselves, have been replaced with this wide-open space of uncertainty.

In our ninth issue of Ascensus, we’re reminded that this space can be filled with our stories, with our art, with expressions of humanity in the face of brutality, illness, and mortality. That uncertainty is sometimes nothing more than the blank canvas onto which we reflect, ruminate, and see things we once never even thought to look for. The pieces in our issue are distant snapshots of pre-pandemic life, essays capturing the quiet, profound mo ments with a patient, photographic journal of a city transforming overnight. They span the distance from Manhattan all the way to Qatar. They show the reader the ways in which the members of our community see the world.

As always, we are indebted to our contributors. To the students, physicians, scientists, instructors, and staff that have chosen to share their art with us. Their talent continues to move us, and we are humbled by their continued engagement with humanities in the Weill Cornell community. We are so proud to present this issue of Ascensus, and we hope it makes as much of an impression on you as it has on us.

We hope you will continue to remain a part of the Ascensus community.

With sincere appreciation, Alana Dinh, Steven Pan, Ryka Sehgal and Jade Wang

MD Class of 2023

Ascensus Co-Directors

Palmer

Coast, Gothic

Hejazi

Fragile Memory

Student, WCM

WCM

Yana Zorina

Research Scientist,

Editing and Screening Core Facility, MSKCC

Yuan

Weber

Myth

Student,

English,

Pan | Medical Student, WCM

Seasons of Central Park

Pilato

Medical Student, WCM

Almond Blossoms

Attempt)

Rina Davidson | MD-PhD Student, WCM

Blossom

Al-Ansari

Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Spreading Growth

Kodama

MD-PhD Student, UCSF

Yana Zorina | Senior Research Scientist, Gene Editing and Screening Core Facility, MSKCC

Again

Orakwue

One and Only

Medical Student, WCM

Yuna Oh | Medical Student, WCM

Anatomy Memorial

Moronta

the Sea

Lamba

In the Jungle

Kotliar

Student,

Student, WCM

Student, TPCB, WCM

Musings from the Secret Garden

Cheema

Assistant Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research

Director, Institute for Population Health, WCM-Qatar

the Rain:

Howard

Don’t

Stay

Miao

Sinha

Dawn

Miao

Student, WCM-Qatar

Professor, Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Medicine

Schachter

on the

Miao and K.H. Miao

Distance

Zhao

Medical Student,

Memorial

Patel, Natalie

Ave in

Evans|

Frissora

WCM

Physician, Gastroenterology,

Students,

Hejazi

Kotliar

Marta

Pilato

to My

Student,

Waqas

Chen

Night

Wang

70th

Lamba|

Wu

Student,

Student,

Student,

Feeling unwell

Mohamud Verjee

Circadia @ 4AM

Sharkey

Eubiosis to Dysbiosis

Dean, Medical Student Affairs, WCM-Qatar

of English, WCM-Qatar

of Pre-Medical Education, Senior Lecturer in Biology, WCM-Qatar

McVeigh |

Friedlander

Student,

The Rime of the Tired Medical Student

Lorien Menhennett

Quarantine Slumber

Medical Student, WCM

Yuna Oh | Medical Student, WCM

Color Vision

Miao and K.H. Miao | Volunteers, WCM

Escape of the Spider

Mohamud Verjee | Assistant Dean, Medical Student Affairs, WCM-Qatar

Bathtub Thoughts

Sonia Iosim | Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Tranquility at Twilight

Isha Lamba | Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Feelings

Mohamud Verjee | Assistant Dean, Medical Student Affairs, WCM-Qatar

COVID-19 6-Word

A tale of two kidneys

Ball | Attending Physician, Internal Medicine, WCM

West Loop, Under the Bridge

Hejazi | MD-PhD Student, WCM

Vision

Fatin Ishtiaq | Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

The Embodiment of Care

Nasser Al-Khawaja

Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Central Park Golden Hour

Pilato | Medical Student, WCM

Midway

Hejazi

Mohamud Verjee

What Makes Up the Soul

Chiara Evans

Eyes

Lascalea

Chiara Evans

Lorien Menhennet

Student,

The Future Looks Bright

Andrew Nelson

Student,

Postdoctoral

Apartment, Amusement

Daniel Hejazi

MD-PhD Student, WCM

Brief Thoughts on the COVID

Cottrel

PGY-1,

Through the Fence

Fatin Ishtiaq

Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Among the Child Believers

Lorien Menhennett

Fatima Al-Binali

Ryka Sehgal

is Closed

Davidson

Medical Student, WCM

Medical Student, WCM-Qatar

Medical Student, WCM

MD-PhD Student, WCM

DUMBO at Dawn

Fatin Ishtiaq

Just Think About

El-Naas

Windowsill

Iosim

Student, WCM-Qatar

Medical Student,

Medical Student,

What We Can Give

Nivita Sharma

Medical Student, WCM

Pilato

In Time,

Kotliar

Found You

Meaning of Peaceful

de Angelis

Dance

Howard

In Time

1970 Lawrence Palmer Poetry

Fifty years ago, a wheel turned.

Some won, and some lost.

Some stayed, and some left.

Some came home, and some did not.

And no one cheered.

Five decades ago, bullets flew.

Some ran, and some fell.

Some wept, and four died – then more.

Some were silent, and some cried out.

And no one paid.

Half a century ago, bombs dropped.

Some fell on mountains, and some on valleys.

Some fell on forest, and some on fields.

Some fell on soldiers, and some on farmers.

And no one knew.

Two score and ten years ago, men talked.

Some words were soft, and some loud.

Some words were strong, and some were weak.

Some words were truth, and some were lies.

And no one listened.

Gold Coast, Gothic

Daniel Hejazi Photography

Fragile Memory

Yana Zorina

Mixed media

Aphasia: a poem for two voices

Melissa Yuan Poetry

fine, I am going to be fine. I have made it through 2 different cancers. I am going to be fine.

I am

here for him. He’s seen me through all these years of my own cancer treat ments and he’s always been the strong one.

I carry the heavy suitcase into the urgent care center, containing enough of our belongings to be comfortable for a while. We’ve been through this before.

my worries in silence. I don’t want to concern him.

What year is it, the doctor asks me. “Nine… nine-nineteeen twenty.” I am stuttering. Why can’t I say it? I know what year it is. “Nine… nine teen. Twenty nineteen.”

Could this be cancer? Is this a chemo side effect? He is so eloquent. I wish the doctors knew how eloquent he was.

Surgery. The doctor said surgery. Does he understand what that means?

I hope this is over soon. he’s not afraid.

So many people

keep coming in but only speaking to my wife. Do they know I under stand? Do they know I’m here?

They are taking me away from my wife. I want her to be here. I want her to be here.

are coming by, I can’t keep track of who they are, what they’re saying, what it means.

He is heading down for brain surgery.

What is happening? What is going to happen?

This big cut on my head

Seeing him like this hurts

What year is it, the doctor asks me. “N—n—no. No. Go away.”

I am

what is happening. I am sick.

He is losing his grasp on reality and it’s terrifying. I know he must be so scared

I don’t know

how this could be happening so quickly. Progressive multifocal en cephalopathy. What does that even mean? The doctor said fatal. Weeks.

How long are we

staying here until we go home? I want to go home.

going to have together? Will he be one of the few success stories? The doctor showed me a clinical trial. It said that 4 people got better on that new treatment. Could that happen to us?

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

They said that the drug company de nied our request for the treatment.

He can’t urinate, he can’t stand up, he can’t even swallow anymore. The only thing he says are “help me” and “go away”. How has this happened so fast?

I signed the DNR paperwork today.

Help me.

I packed up our suitcase today.

I haven’t even cried. I can’t believe this is happening.

We are going to hospice today.

It’s happened so fast.

One month ago he was carrying our big suitcase.

Untitled

Alan Weber Poetry

Water many-fingered rolling and lolling turned back, double-quick on itself poked and pried into this cranny or that bemused shrieky owls and frightened the cat. when dead men’s sheets stroll gibbering in the streets many-figured water will seek out their mouldy soul’s earthy charnel house and there dissolve their atoms on cue water a small flower

Creation Myth

Steven Pan Poetry

On the way to my grandmother’s house

I lose my place in the outskirts of Nanjing and wander the gravel streets that I once learned by sound and touch and paces measured to the smell of a familiar warmth.

Her house is mortared with cement and unseen walls inside rooms. I used to listen for ghosts that roamed here, trapped in the space between an echo and a last reflection.

Where life and death merged like absence threading into another memory.

My grandmother, who once told me never to waste the carcass of fruit. To always keep the pit, submerge it in the ground and leave time to burn the remains. So that one day, it may be reborn. One day, it may find a new purpose in another generation’s perpetual hunger.

Whose mind began to splinter in its twilight, memories flooding and then receding like a tide returning to the ocean, pulled back by another order. My grandmother, who remained in her garden, interring seeds into turned earth even as her own fate continued to count down.

Who forgot every thing in the end but still remembered that all of existence was just a new iteration of loss.

Four Seasons

Tara Pilato Photography

of Central Park

Almond Blossoms (An Attempt)

Rina Davidson Painting

May’s White Blossom

Haya Al-Ansari

Essay

It was hard to swoon over May’s white blossom, the nobility of the flowers, their innocence, and elegance when the world went to war.

The pain was vivid and slow when our hope of living broke into two halves. The movement of every limb occupied our sense of failure and what we could have prevented.

Thus, slowly without gracing ourselves with each of our presence, we grew our roots and made ourselves a couple of tendrils of light in this noc turnal serene of dark gardens.

This darkness I speak of, where we first reached the extremities of our psyche, was thrown out to sea towards an unapproachable reality, or per haps, an uncertain future.

A future where gambling one’s death to provide a humanmade dose is ac ceptable. In this way—thinking of how we quickly approached the open mouth of the grave when desperate, the idea of disastrously exposing one’s self to mutated thoughts numbs our whole delicate core, making it a horri fying nightmare.

However, through breathless days, beaten lungs, and defeated love, they forgot their need to be cured. What hospital doors and emergency halls their souls held, each one hid love in their spirits.

Perhaps somewhere, another survivor, just like myself, is searching for the spine of the galaxy, yesterday’s promises as they call it. It became kind of a shield—a way of concealing one’s true feelings, metamorphosing pain to honey.

And as we keep our distance, each enduring ceaseless waves, the unimag ined stories composed within these extremities will be made the most beautiful.

A Spreading Growth

Lay Kodama Poetry

The warmth of the midafternoon sun captured

Between the stitches of your quilted blanket leaves a musty Odor. Its color faded, a periwinkle gradient

So subtle yet transcends time, a true Rip Van Winkle. My fingers follow along the bumps Imagining how your knitting needles clanked

Until each row emerged, and you began anew–A typewriter of threads and wishes Of future embraces.

Maybe a missed stitch Here or an extra stitch there – I can read your history

In the genes of your tapestry passed down to me.

My fingers reach the end where events begin to unravel, The frayed pieces blooming like the seed That took root in your breast and uprooted the rest,

Its hunger fueled by time and chance. Undoing is easy, effortless,

As the yarn turns to dust, unleashing itself into shimmering puffs. They leave a single thread, a promise to knit another, But the needles rest, and I’m just left With knots and tangles.

Attraction

Yana Zorina

Mixed media

Begin Again

Chimsom Orakwue Poetry

It’s funny how Just when you resign And say, “Oh well”

That life begins to bud again And releases the dew- laced scent of hope, The light hidden under the eyes that held the tears that watered the bud to which new life has grown And sorted a crinkle in your nose To which you turn And glance

With eyes that share belief and disbelief

The wonder hidden under the eyes that held the tears that watered the bud to which new life has grown At where life has sprouted where you thought it was no more And so you kneel and Peel away the dead foliage Gently now, For this is the second chance you have been given

One and Only

Yuna Oh Photography

Anatomy Memorial Service Speech

Matthew Moronta Speech

Thank you for being my first patient. You will live on, I can promise you this. In my interactions with future patients and while in the OR, you will live on.

When we first met, I felt numb. Who was I to you but a strang er with no formal prior training in an odd, cold room? We both have never been here before. Yet you came here with no expectation of anything to gain or lose. Numbness is not a feeling. On the contrary, numbness is a lack of feeling. I could not help but feel numb against your life, your death, who you were, how you lived, and who you loved. Please understand we purposefully try not to feel to focus on our learning. You would not let my humanity go so easy, though.

Through our time together, I found myself feeling for you. How could I heal you? I could not, you were not sick. How could I save you? I could not, you already passed. How could I honor you? This I could…by fully embracing your humanity as my compass in medicine. My actions thereaf ter were purposefully meticulous.You deserved my best and nothing less.

When I touched your heart, I thought of how your chest would beat faster and faster when with the ones you loved. And now here you are in my heart, instilling in me the importance of humanity and empathy.

When I touched your lungs, I thought of each deep breath you would take when trying to calm down your nerves in times of stress. And now here you are in my breath, encouraging me to stay brave for my patients no matter which obstacles come our way.

When I touched your hands, I thought of how your fingers would trace against the sand when relaxing on the beach. And now here you are in my hands, guiding them as I trace the human body.

When I imagined your voice, I thought of how your vocal cords would vi brate each time you said, “I love you,” to the ones you loved. And now here you are in my voice as I talk about medicine with peers and professors.

I applaud you. Many of us go through life wondering what we can do in our present life to give back while we are here. But you went fur ther than that. You decided you wanted to give back not just while you were in this world, but to give back while you were out of this world, which speaks volumes on your character. I know we have never truly met–I would love to chat with you–but I know through your selfless act that you are kind and that you genuinely care about leaving this world better than when you entered it. Thank you again for everything.

By the Sea

Isha Lamba Painting

In the Jungle

Ilana Kotliar

Musings from the Secret Garden

Sohaila Cheema Essay

The current COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives, a sense of gloom surrounds us not knowing when we will return to some form of normalcy. With movement restrictions in place, we must stay at home and go out only for the essentials.You may remember reading The Secret Garden, a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911. One of the characters in the book is Mary Lennox a self-centered, domineering, haughty girl who discovers a secret garden in the grounds of the manor where she lives with her uncle. The novel unravels how Mary starts interact ing with the garden’s landscape, its varying seasons, dirt, flowers, and how this helps to heal her leading to a transformative change for good in her. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I share musings from my secret gar den. Fortunately for me, I can just open my living room door and enter the piece of heaven where I can find respite during these unprecedented times.

It is my happy space. Nature abounds in its glory. It appears untouched by the upheaval caused in the outer world by the pandemic. I often sit on the wood en bench, placed centrally, strategically to be able to view the majestic gar den in its entirety, stretching across from the right in front of the car porch and up to the left at the outer wall home boundary. The vibe of life, positiv ity, and healing is abundant. My silent reverie only broken by the sound of

the car engines passing by outside on the road intermittently. The cool green of the grass and the plants soothe my tumultuous emotions bringing calm ness and inner peace. The landscape warmly embraces me, reminding me of the tranquility one experiences while lounging on a quiet white sandy beach baking in the sun’s warmth. I am filled with amazement at the variety of dif ferent plants, flowers, shrubs living in harmony together, uplifting each oth er, thriving, moving on with their lives. Each plant, each leaf, each flower, each stem, is unique – leaves me in wonderment and awe. I feel that garden landscaping is a creation of art: the gardener puts endless love and care, care fully strokes with his painting brush, creating a mastermind, an art piece. The only difference may be that canvas art once created can last a lifetime, but to sustain a garden you must diligently persevere and continue to pro vide sustenance and give care and love endlessly for its survival and growth.

I often wonder about the conversations the plants/trees and flowers have amongst themselves. Is there rivalry among them? What worries they have, what gives them happiness? What makes them bloom? Do they feel sadness and despair? Do they have stories to tell? They weather the wind, heat, cold, rain, thunder, sometimes even hail. The resilient one’s tread on. To me they are gentle giants, giving oxygen to the air we breathe and taking away the carbon dioxide from the environment to make our air cleaner. They silently complain when sickness befalls them – mottling or yellowing of the leaves, maybe a gentle outward turn of the leaves, shedding leaves or growth re tardation. The leaves behind me rustle, maybe it’s a lizard passing by, may be the leaves whispering amongst themselves. A bee buzzes by my ear as it goes along its business for the day. Some of the tree boughs sway along with the leaves in the gentle breeze, maybe singing a lullaby? The creep ers, slowly but steadily creeping across the walls, intertwining, forming a beautiful wall of green interspersed with purple/yellow flowers forming a perfect natural zig-zag pattern. With May here in Qatar, it’s summertime.

With the temperature soaring, the rose plants are still blooming, but less. I see a spray of yellow, pink, red roses, still smiling, hanging in there facing the heat - they remain green, the stems standing tall, showing the presence of life waiting for better weather in which they can re-flower in full bloom again. They appear to be resting, focusing on surviving the heat, showcasing resilience to be able to flower again as the environment gives them a chance. Our cat, Monty strolls by majestic in its stride, walking slowly and leisurely, owning the land she walks on. She finds a spot to lay down in one of the bigger potted plants in the shaded area, curls, and finds a comfortable pose to take a nap. The watered potted soil helps keep her cool from the high summer temperature. I take my sandals off to feel the cool coarse grass, it teases my feet, almost playing with me! I feel connected to the Earth – it awakens a spirit of healing and restoration, a prevailing calmness within the disruption and upheaval of the outer world caused by the current pandemic.

The musings from my secret garden and lessons from Mother Nature, which we as humans can apply in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to help us tread on with life are Resilience – we will get through this, hang in there; Harmony – we are in this together, let’s beat this together as a community; Humility – let’s not forget we are all humans first, protect the vulnerable and marginalized populations; Uplift – show care and support for affected indi viduals and families, and all the frontline workers battling the pandemic; Re spect – salute to all our frontline workers, they are putting much at stake to protect us; Appreciate – be thankful and count your blessings, show your grat itude towards others who have less than you. #Stay Home and #Stay Safe.

Disclaimer: I take no credit for the beautiful garden in my home. My secret garden is lovingly cared for by my dear husband, Omer Cheema. I am grateful to him for creat ing this happy space for me.

fringed rosemallow, macroalgae, myosotis, magnolia, marigold

Alana Dinh

Adiaphane

Nojoud Al-Ansari Monologue

It is in a desire that I lost myself, and it is in need that I feel weak. It keeps me silent, and it keeps me sane. You keep it within, with these urges to dis integrate.

I am but an imposter, a fraud. I write prophecies of the world, then believe them, hold onto them tight. I make sure these prophecies are with me, writ ten in the chapters of my life. I keep them there to guide me, keep me in check, and keep me in place.

It is in these prophecies that I find snippets of my identity. It’s this constant turmoil that makes living uncanny. I’m threaded to a life of compromise. Here lies a disconnect between who I am, and there I find different inter pretations of what I think. It keeps me out of tune with the world, and I find myself alone in my realm.

Is this heartthrob that I feel solely for me? This heart pounce, strong and loyal, is it of authenticity? Azure beads keep me stranded in place, high and lonely, yet it keeps me serene.

It wilts at the touch of my fingertips, and it slithers away from my sight. Tulips, lilies, and orchids, of wondrous shades of love, harmonize to form a mosaic of what life could become, what I could learn to be. I take in the fragrant scent of the garden.

Brandy Holman Drawing

I smile because you are my sister and I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it

Boxes

Vruj Patel Short fiction

A boy with a furrowed brow sat in the middle of a ring of boxes filled with old toys and photographs. Arrayed in front of him were dozens of unmarked CDs and DVDs, personally manufactured gifts full of memories and stories of his quiet and short, but well-lived life in the small town he had called home.

Across from him was another face, bordered by sparse, unsightly stubble and capped by a backwards green hat that had faded from use. Though his face did not present the same level of discontentment that his companion did, there was a quiver in his hands that became noticeable when he examined any of the perhaps dozens of comic books, some of them self-authored, that lay all over the floor.

In this moment, the boy picked up a large book with thick pages and placed it into one of the boxes, taking extra pains to assure that nothing would damage the already frayed pages. This was the last in a series of sketchbooks that the boy had placed in such boxes and, of course, this was not the first time the boy had placed his most valuable possessions in boxes which often disappeared.

“Maybe we can go to Moe’s one last time,” said the friend, breaking a silence that had unknowingly crept it’s way into their company.

“I’m sure there’s a Moe’s in New York, lots of them,” replied the boy, as he picked up a book out of the box, holding it by its spine.

His friend broke into a smile. “Maybe there is.”

“I need to pack by six.”

“I know.”

The novel the boy found was his entertainment on a trip he had taken some time ago. The text of it was large and the words were simple and it had pictures at the front of every chapter of a creature that would ac tualize within it, though, he remembered, the drawings were always more detailed than the writing and the writing was shitty anyway.

“This book was crap.”

“I don’t get why people don’t just stop reading something they don’t like,” the friend looked up from the comic book he had immersed himself into.

“I suppose it had some continuity,” answered the boy without looking up.

His friend retrieved a vibrating cell phone from his pocket. “When did you tell Marie that you were moving?”

“I didn’t,” the boy chuckled, “I did, however, tell her I was going to pay her back next week.”

“When next week?”

“After I move,” replied the boy sheepishly.

“She talks about you a lot, you know.” The friend replaced his phone in his pocket and eyed his friend with a fresh box full of old cables and computer games in his lap.

“Do you think she’s into me?” the boy looked at his friend with sar castically widened eyes, and picked up a folded box which was mor phed through muscle memory and tape into a genuine container.

“She hates you so fucking much, dude,” his friend replied with a contagious laugh.

The boy started placing socks and other various undergarments into the recently transformed box. It was late and the boy was running quite close to his packing deadline. He wasn’t rushing for the sake of the moving vans either; he continued to work at a methodical pace. His friend couldn’t tell

if he was stalling, as to whether he was lost in the idea of moving again, after having established yet another identity and collection of memo ries to be left behind. The boy’s life was a continuum of twists and turns so untimely and random that he rarely knew the warmth of anything for more than a few years, whether it was that of a smile or of a trail to travel.

The boy finished packing the box and looked up at his friend, who spoke with a heavy throat, “I gotta go,” he started, “I guess I’ll see you when you drive over.”

“Thanks for helping me out,” said the boy.

“Yeah,” was the only response, as his friend walked to the stairs.

The boy got up and leaned his shoulder on the wall adjacent to the stairs, sup porting himself and watching his best friend of three years prepare to leave.

The two stood for a moment, each looking at the ground in front of them, thinking about the other.

“I’ll see you when you drive over,” the friend once again broke the silence and began retreating down the stairs.

As the friend shut the front door behind him, the boy made his way to the outer room, in which his figure became a silhouette against a wide window of evening light. The boy watched as his friend moved across the driveway and got back into his car, which did not start or move immediately. As a matter of fact, the car stood still for a minute or two, as if the friend inside it was contemplating, as if he would, at any moment, reemerge from the car and walk back into the house and hug his friend and tell him that the times they shared would forever be tucked into the rim of his consciousness.

In reality, his friend had dropped his keys, but the boy was unaware of this.

Passing through Friendship

Chimsom Orakwue

Short fiction

“

I-I’m sorry..this just isn’t going to work anymore.”

click.

The cellphone in my hand abruptly gave way to the mono tone buzz that mimicked the same puzzlement in my thoughts before finally settling into a permanent silence.

It had been one of my high school best friends and a routine conversation that had taken place many times before. A funny story that would lead to a flurry of hurried text messages back and forth in an attempt to cap ture our sentiments in as real-time as feasibly possible and then, a phone call, allowing our fingers to rest while our voices carried the work of maintaining the high pitch volume of teenage laughter and conversation.

This call, however, was different. Begun not by the premise of an embar rassing photo, but by a question, posed unaccompanied, with a solitude I didn’t recognize.

“Hey, can I give you a call?”

I hesitated briefly, my mind sensing the shuttle shift and then dismissing it to her being embroiled in anoth er tale of teenage drama that promised of satisfying enthrallment.

I responded. “Sure of course! What’s up?”

What went on in the next 10 minutes broke down a three-year friendship back into its original, and foundational counterparts- one single me and one single her- in a matter of seconds, while I, simply sat, the phone leaden by my ears.

“It’s not you.. It’s just that...” [things out of my control] my heart whispered softly. “I wish…” [yes, i wish i could control them too]

But I had stopped listening well before then.

“I-I’m sorry..this just isn’t going to work anymore.”

click.

It took days to wrench myself out of the old routine and embed myself into a new life that she was no longer a constant part of. At first I took the Miss Independent route, declaring to anyone and everyone willing to hear, that I could do bad all myself. Who needs her anyway? I’d mutter.

Well, that lasted about as long as my siblings tolerated my badly sung rendi tion of Beyonce’s Me, Myself, and I.

I occupied my time with the things I loved — drawing and paint ing, letting the sun’s touch gently warm my browned skin on after noon walks, although its rays, somehow, couldn’t always reach my heart.

Then

I grieved.

I allowed myself to feel grief. Each time my fingers stiffened above the phone screen, catching myself before sending an impulsive text, each mo ment wondered what she had been up to that day was hard. But with each passing day, her presence became more and more like an opaque memory.

I catch myself reflecting on this friendship sometimes. Not with anger or spite. But in simple thought. Relationships like life, are visceral — a con stant ebb and flow that sheathes the gentle balance between give and take. The funny thing is that sometimes we forget to acknowledge its dynamicity and fevently hold onto people that have served their purpose in our lives.

I’ve learned to recognize that, no matter how much it may hurt, relationships will not always be permanent but that does not imply that they were a failure. In each, you’ve learned something about yourself- how to love, to un derstand a new perspective, to give way, and to stand firmly within yourself.

The passing of two ships isn’t a symbol of loss. It’s the narrative of an ap proach, a love shared, a lesson learned and a gentle goodbye as we become part of the story of another.

After the Rain: Citifield

Jacqueline Howard Photography

Citi Sunset

Jacqueline Howard Photography

We Don’t Know Everything Yet

Steven Stay

Poetry, Music

Religion teaches us why

We were born and sent to earth, How to live in peace, And how much a soul is worth. There’s still much to be revealed.

We’re as close as you can get. We know how to be saved, But we don’t know everything yet!

We use science to figure out How to make so many things, How the stars are formed,

And how the birds got wings. Science can’t answer “Why?” Its boundaries are set.

It has taught us many things, But we don’t know everything yet!

Faith and science are friends.

You can use them both to learn. God gave you your mind

To ask how and why in turn. Someday all truth will be One system, you can bet.

God has taught us many things, But we don’t know everything yet!

This poem is intended to be enjoyed with a musical accompaniment. Please scan the following QR code in order to access the recording.

Ascension

J.H. Miao and K.H. Miao

Incomplete

Pratyaksha Sinha Poetry

There are many things I leave incomplete

Some benign

The comforter on my bed folded in half

Closed eyes hidden from sunrays

Parting words as my parents leave for work

Caresses veiled in furs of unconditional love

Letters to individuals I admire

Silent videos on incomprehensible topics

Piles of peanuts hidden behind books

There are countless things I leave incomplete

Some ruinous

A glass half full and empty

Tasks lingering lonesome on papers

Ideas stubbornly reverberating in my mind

A burning candle enveloped by dust

Notes soundlessly embellishing a sheet

A longing to create meaning

Whims of running away

There are things I leave incomplete

Burdensome thoughts

Extinguished ideas

This

Luminous Dawn

Madeleine Schachter

Painting

Dreams on the Horizon

J.H. Miao and K.H. Miao Photography

Long Distance

Alice Zhao Essay

It was a crisp night in January, and the restaurant was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, me and my friends tried to squeeze through the crowd to a couple benches near the door as we waited for the hostess to call our reservation. Through the lattices of wooden screens, I saw table after ta ble of families and friends gathered around plates of food. The sound of clinking china and chatter was a relief. I’d heard that people had start ed avoiding Chinatown, that business had plummeted ever since news of coronavirus had started dominating the headlines. But here, tonight on Chinese New Year, everything was exactly the way it should be. Normal.

It was surreal, almost. After all, an ocean away, my dad and my grandfather had also had a celebratory dinner for Chinese New Year—stripped down to the barest necessities. Cartons of takeout instead of a table heavy with the weight of dishes. The quiet murmurs of two people instead of the low rumble of a hundred. My grandfather was 92, and even though coronavi rus hadn’t fully hit Beijing yet, my dad wasn’t willing to take any chances.

“Happy Chinese New Year!” I had texted my dad earlier in the day.

“Go eat some duck!” he had replied, accompanied by an emoji with heart eyes.

It was January 21st, 2020. A day later, my grandfather’s nursing home would close itself to all visitors. A day later, my dad flew back to Singa pore where his company was based and quarantined himself for two weeks.

At first, I didn’t think much of my dad’s isolation in his apartment. After all, it was his company’s policy that anyone who had traveled to China recently had to quarantine for two weeks regardless of whether they had come into contact with anyone from Wuhan or not. They had sent over a thermometer so my dad could monitor his temperature. A safety precaution.

However, as the two weeks finished and my dad told me that he had decided he was only going to emerge from his apartment once every week to take out the trash, I became alarmed. I had just come off my psychiatry clerkship, and the urge to pathologize anything and everything was at fever pitch. I thought about the symptoms of depression, the risk factors, the plain fact that my newly divorced dad was in an apartment by himself in a country thousands of miles away. And, now he was hoarding food. And, now he was secluding himself.

It didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t imagine any kind of scenario— even with the threat of disease—where the logical next step would be to lock yourself in your house and not come out unless absolutely nec essary. What are the odds? It’s not like if he went outside he’d be hug ging strangers. We had an argument on the phone for twenty minutes.

“I think you should go outside at least three times a week,” I said. “No.”

“This is abnormal,” I pointed out.

“I’ll do two times.”

“Three times!” I cried out.

“Two times,” he stressed.

“Maybe,” he added. I gnashed my teeth.

In early March, an ER resident told me that it might be a good idea to buy some canned soup. It was a little over a week after reports had con firmed the first coronavirus case in New York City, and it seemed to me like the unease that had been brewing under the surface for the last couple of months was starting to roil and threaten to break through. I was work ing in the pediatrics ER, and a patient had just come in with a high fever, rattling cough, and bilateral diffuse lung opacities on chest X-ray. When the respiratory panel had come back positive for metapneumovirus, my attend ing had breathed an audible sigh of relief and slumped back in his chair.

That evening, I walked to Morton Williams with a duffel bag, feeling more than a little ridiculous. One of my friends had texted me in the afternoon that the mayor was considering closing the city. That’s probably a hoax, an other friend had replied in the group-chat—but I still couldn’t get that gnawing feeling out of my stomach, that I needed to be prepared, that things were about to get very real, very quickly. The store was so packed, the line wound itself through multiple aisles. As I lugged my duffel bag of Progresso soups and frozen vegetables inch by inch to the checkout counters, I saw other people’s carts stuffed with some of the same—fro zen meals, canned fruit, bags and bags of dried pasta and rice. One of my friends was in the line the aisle next to mine and we walked out together.

She shook her head. “That was nuts. I think I saw my resident three people behind me.”

Later in the night, I called my dad. After his declaration that he was no longer going outside, I had made it a duty of mine to call him at least twice a week, once through video, to check that he was “all right”—not unshaven, not unkempt, not struggling.

“There were so many people,” I told him. “Everyone’s panicking. I bought twelve cans of soup. I have three bags of rice.”

“I told you so,” my dad said. He had recently sent me a picture of his re frigerator, stocked with bags of kimchi and what seemed to be two dozen takeout containers.

“And there’s no masks anywhere,” I said. “People are selling them for five dollars a mask outside of the subway station in Flushing.”

“What did I tell you?” My dad snorted. “And you didn’t take me seriously.”

“How was I supposed to know?” I said.

That Sunday, the medical school suspended our clerkships, pulling all medical students from clinical spaces. The following Wednesday, I locked my room in the apartment and took an Uber to Newark. In two hours, I was at the front door of my boyfriend’s house in Pittsburgh—to start quarantining for real.

***

In some ways, the quarantine has made me and my dad’s relationship stron ger. He’s worked overseas for as long as I remember, and I maybe saw him five or six times a year in short spurts, no longer than four weeks, while I was growing up. I never really understood him beyond him being the bread winner of the family, the one who took me on nice vacations and bought me expensive gifts. When my parents divorced a year ago, that was when I first started learning about my dad in any kind of real way—what he liked, what he didn’t like, his habits. He liked sweeping his floor every week. He liked eating a giant bao for breakfast before he headed into work. He loved eating sweet potatoes from a very specific vendor in Flushing—he would stare at the pile of sweet potatoes for minutes, trying to choose the best one.

And, now—there’s new habits, for the both of us. It’s strange how mundane our conversations are and just how much I replay them in my mind. We talk about how he carried four watermelons from the gro cery store the other day. We talk about how he bought a new treadmill for his apartment, how that treadmill broke, and how he bought anoth er treadmill—used—but the company delivered a brand new one. We talk about the dogs he likes, the view outside his apartment. He sends me pictures of the meals he has and a bi-monthly photo of his refriger ator’s contents. Each of our conversations are half an hour, sometimes longer. Before the quarantine, we talked for maybe ten minutes a week.

I think we’re both concerned about each other. I’m concerned that he’s lonely. He’s concerned that I’m freaking out. There is a global pandemic happening, and we are separated by almost ten thousand miles. He was sup posed to visit in March, but now it’s June, and it’s very likely we won’t see each other in person until the fall. Sometimes we joke that I can always fly to Singapore if things go south in the United States. I can sleep on the foldout couch, and we can watch Netflix from my account, and we can eat a good dinner, a hearty dinner—because me and my dad love food, love it with a kind of joy that’s indescribable. It’s all a fantasy, I know: Singa pore isn’t letting anyone in these days, not even to layover at their airport.

The other day, we called each other and we were playing a familiar game— theorizing where my dad would retire to. He always flip-flops between Cal ifornia, Hawaii, or Japan. This time, he said he wants to buy a nice place in Tokyo. I ragged on him, pointed out he doesn’t even speak Japanese.

After a pause, he said, “We had fun that time in Japan, a year ago. We should go again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Hokkaido.”

“They have great seafood,” he said. “They’re known for their crabs.”

We’re not really the kind of father-daughter pair that’s into sentiment. And, I’d never say this to him. But, I’d go anywhere with him, after this is all over.

I just want my dad.

Anatomy Memorial

Vruj Patel, Natalie Nguyen, Chimsom Orakwue Speech

On the first day of anatomy lab, we began by examining your back. I suspect this was done on purpose; unlike the hands or the head, the back is flat, featureless, not as strikingly human. As our instructor detailed the arteries and muscles, I could not but help imagine the burdens and joys your back had once carried.

When next we began to study your arms, we found muscles and bone that had braced you from and embraced the world -- a world that we know only through faded photographs, the stories of our elders, and the scars on your body.

The hands were hard for me. As I held your delicate hands in my own, I imagined how many other hands they had held, how many other souls with whom you had shared some momentary comfort.

The sight of your heart moved mine and I will forever carry the stillness and wonder of it in the rhythmic beating of my own.

I held your lungs in my hands and studied your vocal cords in great detail, but I only wish I had had the opportunity to hear your voice. I wonder what you might have said to us.

As we studied your belly, I wondered how many times it had shaken in rau cous laughter, how many delicious meals you had shared with those you loved and those who loved you.

When we touched your feet, we touched feet that had walked the soil of nine decades. I wonder what foreign shores and horizons your feet had reached towards and where they still yet yearned to go.

Your face was the last thing we studied -- and unlike your back, there was scarcely a centimeter without evidence of a life well-lived. From eyes that have watched colorful leaves dance in autumn, to a nose that has run in many a New York winter, and inhaled the first blossoms of spring, and a face that has been kissed by the warmth of the summer sun.

Throughout the semester, there were moments when I was in awe that someone had made the decision to contribute to my life even after death. Every day, I greeted you by name to remind myself that a soul once occupied the body in front of me. Muscles and organs, arrayed neatly on the pages of a textbook, could never have taught me as much as you did. I hope you can rest easy knowing that you were as loved and respected in death as you were in life. Thank you for giving so much to us so that we may give back to others.

Park Ave in Springtime

Chiara Evans Photography

Snow Puff

Christine L. Frissora Poetry

White marshmallows powdered tracks grey sky snow falling

I am following that boy strong and free here away

On the peak on the cliff we are just the 2

Early morning little visibility fog mist snow powder

I can’t see, follow the skis in front of me this moment this sky this powder is only ours

No one else would ride up in the snow He wanted to so I went

I tried to leave with the school boys I was helping on the lift “Mom? Come on!”

In the mist the snow we climb Only silence the powder the mist his skis my skis that moment only to ourselves only ours

Clear wide white powder slope we are above the clouds alone Skiing alone on the cliff in the mist on the snow

But there is sun on this side

How is there sun on this side?

There was not to be sun

But there is sun all to ourselves no one would come here in the snow So we are alone in the sun “Get speed, Mom!”

We are to go up a hill to the lift My descent out of our cliff

There is ice I fly, one bump and I will die I don’t die but I fly A snow board right in front of me

I fly

There is no space to pass

I scream left left left

Snow board is swishing sliding wide taking the whole path

I fly

there are no brakes on this ice

I fly

I do not hit him

I fly

Into the safety net the sign destroyed

A puff of smoke

A cloud everywhere Legs sprawl skis fly off Head in helmet hits something soft

I feel nothing

I stand screaming and stomping at the snowboard

That stopped to watch until he saw me safely up Then runs

The boy watches from a distance laughing

It looked funny to him - funny

Funny that we did not need the hill after all there was another lift below

There is nothing to be done Curse swear look for that snowboard

But I have felt nothing

I am unharmed

So it’s time “Come on, Mom! The lift is here!”

Opera Time

Jacqueline Howard Photography

Irongirl

Christine L. Frissora Poetry

I’m not sure when she became a part of me

It was insidious

Maybe when he told me she was made especially for his girlfriend who rode it once

Maybe when she was on sale

Maybe because she was so light strong delicate beautiful Maybe because my helmet and workout pants matched her Because my son said we looked legit

Because we had so many adventures together Because I fell off of her so many times and got back on For so many reasons I don’t know myself She matched me I matched her

We were just a team a perfect team

One day I fell on a water bottle and cracked her chain I had to carry her a mile to the subway which was closed

So I carried her to another subway She was light I was strong I was training for the Ironman we were training together I never named her Never thought about her much Until one night in a moment of stupidity naïveté cluelessness I locked her in a dark place a stupid place a dangerous place

But the lock was strong it had a key a thick chain She was protected I believed she was protected Felt it knew it

So after dinner when I walked back to her she was gone with the cracked chain where I left her Helmet disbanded discarded thrown on the ground

In her place was shock fear regret The next day

I have my husband’s bike adjusted This is a performance and endurance bike He explains Can I go 112 miles on it?

It’s perfect for that beautiful He grins nods I get on it

Black and orange Powerful with a kick

It is ever so slightly more powerful smooth efficient I feel it

I am up the hills 7 times 8 I am not sweating or tired

I am perfect smooth

I miss my girl but I have my guy And soon I will be an Ironman

Alaska Grows!

Keith Lascalea

Volere

Ghizlane Bendriss Poetry

Je pense donc je suis, dit Descartes

But who am I?

When everything around me deeply affect con nections of my brain, Qui suis-je?

Lorsque chaque jour, l’expérience fais de moi un être nouveau,

A brain dependent on external inputs

Processing information to take decisions, Suis-je libre?

Un être libre et responsable,

Or a machine with no moral?

Determinism or Free will?

This is what it is all about.

Je pense donc je suis, dit Descartes

I am a brain that integrates external information

To create a new state of being

A new me who can think differently

Appraise and approach the world with compas sion

Or decide to fill it with destruction

This new person is free, therefore

Je pense, donc je suis… Libre.

Lost in Manhattan

Yana Zorina

Media

The Loop, High-Rise

Daniel Hejazi Photography

Romehenge

Ilana Kotliar

Anatomy Memorial

Alexander Marta Speech

Marking over 100 days since the start of our medical journey, today is especially one to cherish, as my class looks forward to learning of the lives of the amazing donors and also to share with you the significance of their altruistic dedication.

I want to reiterate what has been appreciated by my peers, and particularly highlight the duality of the role upheld by your loved ones.

Learning the depths of the structural complexity and functional capabil ities of the human body is a miraculous experience alone. Mastering this knowledge is one of the most challenging and invaluable tasks I have ever faced. Without the selfless and thoughtful commitments made by your family members, my peers and I would not have achieved these feats.

But there is also much more, a lesson not written in our textbooks nor illustrated in any PowerPoint. Every moment entering into anatomy was immeasurably humbling. Beyond the human heart’s physiology, your loved ones symbolized its intangible capacity for courage and extensive love.

Without knowing us, these kind souls offered so much - they sought to help others even after life on Earth, for nothing in return, but for the fu ture advancement of Medicine and the greater good of humanity.

It was an indescribable feeling to stand by them and think “these individ uals were concerned for the wellbeing and healthcare of those that would come after them, and they acted on it.” These emotions engraved in us the implications of our studies and inspired us to dedicate every ounce of our

efforts to become the best physicians we can possibly be. The commitment to unconditional and indiscriminate care for the wellbeing of others is why we are all gathered here today.

In guiding this class through a foundational pillar of medicine, and in ex emplifying the commendable attributes that all physicians should strive for, your loved ones will be held dearly in the hearts of the class of 2023 as one of the most impactful professors of our scholastic career.

I have long been of the belief that in passing, we are eternalized by the way our actions continue to affect this world and those we have met. Leonardo DaVinci once expressed “sono stato colpito dall’urgenza di fare. Conoscere non è sufficiente, dobbiamo applicare. Essere volenterosi non è sufficiente, dobbiamo fare”. The legacy of knowledge provided by your loved ones will materialize in countless forms: as the future cardiologists in this room perform life-saving bypass surgeries, as the pediatric orthopedists here re construct a child’s knee and hip so that they may walk again – just to name a few.

In reminiscent awe of the servitude demonstrated by those who donated themselves to the field of Medicine, the Class of 2023 will strive adamantly to the provision of selfless and holistic health care of all patients. These rip ple effects are now apart of their eternalized legacy. How proud you must all be, and how humbled in gratitude we all are.

From all of us at Weill Cornell, thank you.

Bloom

Tehniyat Baig Drawing

Quarantine Mood

Tara Pilato

by Edvward Munch

Based

Ode to my Quarantine Unibrow

Bukhtawar Waqas Photography

Based on Fria Kahlo on a Bench (1938) by Nickolas Muray

Untitled

Dora Chen

Poetry

You want to know how much time you have left. Does it look bad? Those are the words you use.

But what words have you left for me to describe what I’ve seen? It’s looks like a gingko-leaf liver chewed through by caterpillars, Ink splattered across your spine, an artist in defeat. I don’t say this, but Cancer of unknown primary, it leaves room for no one. It looks like a nice gruyere, or constellations seen from the Grand Canyon or NASA’s latest photo of deep space (Do you love thinking about space?), but I don’t say this either.

I cannot say it looks like the sound of loud. And really, it looks like screaming.

It looks like thin walls and red eyes and we’ll go to Italy next year It looks like apologies, reunions, like the new house your family just bought. It looks like empty train cars from Long Island.

When you ask me Why am I here? And your eyes are searching somewhere deep, My white coat feels fake, and my age feels so young, and I Can’t say it looks like you’ll want to sit down for this, like doing the first before the lasts and the lasts before It’s over.

It looks like a few months, but I don’t say this.

There is nothing to be said that you don’t already know. Instead, I do what I’ve been taught and I sit, and I’ll do this every day for two weeks. While you reel, the beige walls reel around you and I think about the way metaphors birth metaphors, like how air sucked out of a room gives rise to stale laughter.

That laughter is small but still it is heard –the caterpillars stop chewing for a moment, the artist turns her head. I’ll see you tomorrow, I say but I mean: I’ll be here still and you will be too.

Our bodies we want to believe, are anechoic chambers but in the quietest room in the world, Blood claws its way through the body –the cells chatter, the neurons fire, the phages tear each other apart, Reckless rampaging into padded quiet. You hear it now. Cancer teaches you how.

Once I watched my intern tuck a blanket under the chin of a catatonic man, but first he folded the edges under. He didn’t know I was saw him -- no

We were the last to leave the room. Still, I thought this must be what it is: To lay eyes daily upon the violence that the body must endure And to take our own hands and to soften the edges. Certainly, it must be holy, this laying on of hands.

On the way home, I stop at the crosswalk. Only in NewYork City can you find this late-afternoon light, the kind that flattens skyscrapers against the sky. The feeling comes to me, like two fingers on the wrist. It pulses back and again, and this time it finds words -It is sacred, it is sacred, yes, These moments we bear witness.

Late Night

Jade Wang Drawing

E 70th Cirrocumuli

Tara Pilato Photography

Handle with Care

Isha Lamba Painting

Atlas

Ashley Wu

Poetry

Atlas within me, holding up

My skull, which holds too much, knows too much About this fluorescent floor, for four weeks My home. Daily I pass the nursing station: Daily another patient’s bags

Sit forlorn by the clerk’s desk, Until the bereaved retrieve them.

My patients that still live wait in their rooms, Rooms where they have been waiting And waiting And waiting.

There is heaviness here, the weight of Five goals of care conversations in one morning: Families fighting, Families grieving, Families missing.

Of never-ending transfers between floor and ICU, Hope surrendered and resurrected and surrendered again.

The heaviness of telling patient and loved ones of Kidneys failing, liver failing, lungs failing, heart failing, Brain failing, mind failing, spirit failing.

Of sudden passings that no debriefing can explain. Death notes appearing in charts overnight— The jarring realization when my patient’s name is Gone from the list. I didn’t say goodbye.

The photos in these hallways stare out silently,

Sharing with me about wide open plains in Africa, Rugged peaks in Austria, Angelic beams of sunlight and moody waters, saying:

There is a whole world out there, so much more

Than these narrow corridors and dim hospital Rooms. But atlas, my atlas

Feels burdened enough

Just carrying this place, within these walls.

In all this world, with all its landscapes and all its people, Who could make sense of the heaviness

Of going on living and caring and trying, when atlas carries

More and more of the dead and dying?

Could there be someone who knows how to help my patients

To live well and to die well

In the time that they have left?

There is more, so much more than the end that sickness makes here.

The wonderful letters “CR,” complete remission

The disappearance of red arrows from lab results

The final transfer from ICU to floor to rehab to home

The end of the trail of daily notes

Only restarted when one day, The patient appears In clinic, dressed, clear-eyed, smiling.

These people are not here,

Not here on my fluorescent floor. They are there In Africa, in Austria, in sunlight, at sea.

Could knowing those Lands beyond, lands far far away—

Could they lighten Atlas’ load? Perhaps the world,

And all those living in it, Can carry me

As I carry atlas

Within me.

Portrait of a Woman, 2020

Tehniyat Baig Drawing

Feeling unwell too

Mohamud Verjee Poetry

I caught a cold, just my good fortune

Usual sore throat, fever, runny nose

Headache, fever, muscle ache, caution

Have a bit more, a cough, in the throes

I was fine yesterday, recall the child

That spluttered in my face days ago

Examining him carefully, yes I smiled Unaware of consequences, feeling low

Had to leave the office, too ill to stay Hang on, wait, just some last minute work

Doctor go home, unified, all the staff say Struggle with this guidance, not to shirk

Referrals, reports, file data to enter

No use, have to give up, better to rest Jelly leg walk to my car, I leave the centre

Getting home in one piece, a real test

Stopping off to buy some milk on the way

A patient hails me across the aisles

Hey doctor, here shopping on a workday?

I acknowledge briefly, mutter lifestyles

Doctors are not supposed to be sick

So some patients tell me when they visit

Forgetting that I too am human, no sceptic

Hard to tell them if I am ill, or be explicit

All I can think of is a pillow under my head

The chance to ease my aching limbs, flat

Too many symptoms, now widespread

Water, rehydration, no food, that’s that!

Circadia @ 4:00 AM

Rodney Sharkey

Poetry

Heart like a metronome

Different branch of cryptochrome

Sleep wake cycle

But don’t drive

For longdaysin Steven’s lab turn sleep into a system. Control yourself instead

Amid gardens of Monsanto grass

Where Arabadopis smoke shisha and reach for the sky from diagrammed pathways and, here, nurses work nights on COVID wards

Their clocks unwound

By the science of big business.

Circadian Rhythm is a body crock. Nurses and doctors and orderlies work the hours they’re given Without complaint.

Let this be the poetic transcriptome rapier pointed words. . . unadorned.

In the black of night the rhythm writes back says “it’s hard enough, Jack Don’t make it harder.”

Eubiosis to Dysbiosis

Clare McVeigh Visual Art (Digital)

COVID-19 Frustrations

Rachel Friedlander Poetry

At my kitchen table

I sit in the third seat from the left facing out into the apartment

My feet dangle one inch off the ground if I sit too far back

I sit forward when I really need to concentrate

I kick my feet up when it’s time to relax

I have fallen asleep at my computer

Moved my books when it was time to eat snacks

I have memorized the hum of my refrigerator

I know the footsteps of the children upstairs

I recognize the series of clicks of each person’s key turn

Because at my kitchen table, I’ve sat.

I sat in this seat during MCAT studying

Traveling to and from the operating rooms to shadow

I sat wishing I could be admitted to study

I sat in this seat during preclinical studying

Traveling to and from the anatomy lab in preparation to under stand

I sat wishing to be involved in patient care

I sat in this seat during shelf studying

Traveling to and from the hospital to learn from my patients

I sat wishing to know enough to heal

I sat in this seat during Step 1 studying

Traveling to and from the library to learn from my practice tests

I sat wishing to succeed, to advance

I now sit in this seat during a global pandemic

Traveling nowhere but virtual chats

I sit wishing to participate

Feeling selfish

Feeling isolated

Feeling frustrated

I sit in my seat feeling absent

All my time spent in this seat

Waiting to be able to contribute, Not enough to offer even after all of this time, sitting.

I just stay sat.

The Rime of the Tired Medical Student

Lorien Menhennett

Essay

I recently finished the internal medicine rotation at medical school. Exhausting isn’t the word. How many hours of sleep you get hard ly matters. Not when you consider all the listening, watching, walking, talking, typing, reading, and learning, all of it intense.

Most of my team’s patients were on the same floor, but a few were scat tered elsewhere in the hospital. Our newly admitted patients, waiting to be brought to their rooms, were downstairs in the emergency department. Hospital elevators aren’t exactly known for their speed, leaving me all too much time to ponder life and death (literally) in the elevator banks.

It was then that I started to notice something: beds. Empty hospital beds that is; sometimes with sheets on them, pushed into corners, or against the walls. They seemed to me everywhere. Not in the way, not ob structing anything, but a constant presence, tucked away here and there.

In my weary state, I began looking at them with envy – especially the ones with a set of folded sheets lying on top.

“If only I could hop up and take a quick nap,” I thought to myself, and again, and again.

As the thought cycled through my mind, a line of poetry was born, in spired directly by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 19th-century “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Coleridge was writing about deprivation of

another sort – thirst. Here the most famous stanza from his poem:

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

That’s exactly how I felt: frustrated by the forbidden ubiquity of beds, and sleep. So as I stood waiting next to the latest set of tempting sheets, in a state of desperate fatigue, I took to whispering the following words un der my breath, my modernized incarnation of Coleridge’s legendary verse:

Beds, beds, every where, And not a place to sleep.

As I did this, I both laughed and sighed inside. I’d then hear the “ding” of the arriving elevator, step into the crowded car, and head to my next destination, thoughts of beds and sleep trailing behind me.

Note: A version of this essay first appeared in the online magazine “The American,” www.theamericanmag.com.

Quarantine Slumber

Yuna Oh Photography

Color Vision

J.H. and K.H. Miao

Photography

Escape of the Spider

Mohamud Verjee

Poetry

I think spiders have such grace

Can’t understand why others scream

At their mere appearance

Generating a fright index

“Ooh, a spider, get it away, get rid of it”

As an unwitting helper starts the affray

With a swipe of a magazine

Swish, swish, “I think I’ve got it”

As a crumpled, hapless creature

Sinks to the floor, brute force wins

But what harm did it give rise to Apart from an unfounded fear?

Legs curled beneath, body now in a ball Paid the price just because it was observed

Ruthlessly, needlessly displaced in the assault Irreparable damage possible, done on a whim

Have you no soul, no heart, no love of life

Would you destroy anything else in a moment?

Simply because you had no reason or liking

Understanding nothing of this little creature

I saw someone suck up a family of spiders once

With a vacuum cleaner no less

What a gory death, to be snuffed out

In a bag of dust, hair, and general house filth

No compassion, would you want to go this way

Better to be gentle, help the spider on to some paper

And let the creature go on its way, to be free, at its best

To spin a web of silky thread in marvellous array

Don’t all God’s creations deserve respect

Would you deny a person a right in time?

Denied only because of your vanity

For having a senseless fear of people

Lo! You have not won yet, as it scuttles away

Out of the corner of your eye, you sense motion

You missed the spider, it just fell to the floor

Feigning death, intact to live another day

Bathtub Thoughts

Sonia Iosim Visual Art (Digital)

Tranquility at Twilight

Isha Lamba Painting

Feelings

Mohamud Verjee

Poetry

Feelings

Insight, trusted

Love always implicit

Genuine, sentimental, live

Zealous

Feelings

Tenderness, love

Warmth, fondness, affection

Instinctive, alert, full belief

Action Feelings

All sensitive

Conscious, tactile pleasure

Innate, primitive, instinctive

Valid

Feelings

Hysterical

Impassioned, ardent, joy

Arousing, thrilling, ecstatic

Heartfelt

Feelings

Fiery, fickle

Stirred well, susceptible

Excited, passionate, tear-jerk

Impulse

COVID-19 6-Word Phrases

“The sun is out, I’m not.”

WCM, MD Student

“Panic gives way to impromptu wedding.”

Rockefeller, PhD Student

“Sunset has different colours every day.” WCM, PhD Student

“Waiting, rain, my dad — far away.” WCM, MD Student

“We can’t come back from this.”

WCM, MD Student

*photo by Keith Lascalea

“Are there more ambulances than before?” Rockefeller, PhD Student

“From Wuhan, at NYC, with hope!” WCM, MS Student

“BEAR my Flame in the abyss.”

WCM, MD Student

“chemotherapy, ephemeral, fear, courage, grounding, newlywed.”

-WCM, MD Student

*photo by Keith Lascalea

“We never got to say good-bye.” -WCM, MD Student

“Please do not feed the worries.” -WCM, MD Student

“These newfound connections probably won’t last.” WCM, MD Student

“Unknown. Light. Between. Darkness. Engaged! Grateful.” WCM, PA Student

*photo by Keith Lascalea

“When did I last wear pants?” -WCM, MD Student

“Olin Hall has survived...for this?!” WCM, MD Student

“When did everyone become a runner?” Rockefeller, PhD Student

“The sirens, they never stop sounding.”

WCM, PhD Student

*photo by Juliana Romano

“Strange man, spat words, cold spring.”

WCM, MD Student

“Feeling useless while hell breaks loose.”

WCM, MD Student

“I will wash my hair, tomorrow.”

WCM, MD Student

“Always facing forwards but looking back.” WCM, MD Student

“Found peace by, and within, myself.” -WCM, MD Student

“Can you be homesick at home?”

WCM, MD Student

“Here for you, I am listening.”

WCM, MD Student

*photo by Juliana Romano

*photo by Keith Lascalea

“Breathe and believe that humanity exists.” WCM, MD Student t

A tale of two kidneys

Susan Ball

Fiction Well this is weird.

I’ve been in planes before. Of course I have. Not often but still. Usual ly we’re warm and kind of cozy and only really aware of an occasional bump or sinking feeling. But here, well, wow, this is different. We’re both freezing and vibrating in this jelly stuff. And we are right next to one another instead of separated. There’s no thumping big vessel and its bifurcations feeding us on either side. It’s kind of nice being this close together. I call her Ney of course. What else would I call her? Actually I have no idea if she’s a she or a he. It’s not something we ever talked about.

So anyway there we were riding along in the car in our guy. A great guy, by the way. I just want to say that about him. Provided a good home. Didn’t poison us. Once in a while a nice microbrew came washing through but mostly it was pretty standard stuff and we did our job without incident. Something was off with his heart and we did a little extra filtering but it was no big deal really. And there was the virus a few years ago. Like a swarm of gnats they all came and started planting themselves; obnoxious and rude little things and we couldn’t wave them away because haha we don’t have any hands. A couple of them were super cocky, taunting us, saying they were tak ing over and they’d done it before and it was unnerving. Ney and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows and we were a little un easy. But our guy made his move and some super glue type stuff came through and those viruses just froze up in their virus-making factory and soon they were totally gone. That was a relief I’m telling you.

So we were riding along and I think our guy was humming with some music and suddenly there was this huge jolt and big noise like dropping a cement truck onto a barn. And the jolt nearly dislocat ed me entirely but then it was very quiet except for some ticking sounds and it was awfully dark and things seemed to get very slow. Sometime later I was aware of some wailing sounds, very sad sounds around us. I really cannot say for sure what happened but then there was this very bright light and some weird sensations and now here we are vibrating from the airplane engines and we are both freezing.

***

I’ll take over from here. Kid loves to tell a story but sometimes gets the coming and going mixed up. It never would have been possible a few years ago. Our guy having the virus meant that if he perished all the tools in the shed would go with him. Not that Kid’s a tool. Nor am I, thank you very much. But all of us, every aspect of our guy, we’re like a big engine humming along and we pitch in together and support and depend on each other. We can’t survive without the support from each other. And Kid’s so right about our guy. Just a fellow in a life. Ended so abruptly it was really unexpected and suddenly we were going dark and quiet and slowing down to just about nothing. And in stead something remarkable happened. Because basically Kid and I and a lot of the others, we were all fine. And truly, the support we get from each other can be shared. We can get the support we need from others in another guy. Or girl for that matter, we don’t discriminate in any way let’s be clear and adamant about that! But Kid is right about that virus. It threw everyone off, not just us. Thank goodness for that super glue or whatever it was. Still, those nasty gnats left a bit of a stain and it seemed we were deemed tainted. Our goods were never appealing, we were flung out, rejected, left to perish along with all our hardworking colleagues. But not any more! We are riding in this freezing, vibrating, jelly-like whatever it is because we are on our way to a new home. To do our amazing stuff in a new engine, a new host! It’s so exciting. Ac tually, it’s two new engines, Kid and I each into two different hosts. I’ll

miss Kid, it’s true, but I’m good on my own and so is Kid. And another utterly remarkable thing is that these hosts also have been visited by those annoying and reprehensibly obnoxious little viruses, too. In the past. Stained. A bit. Just like us. Years ago they never would have been offered new parts but times have changed, yes they have. And actually, I might not be supposed to say this, but our new hosts go to the same office for their upkeep. I know, right? How weird is that? It’s great! I will be sitting in a chair and there might be Kid, sitting in a chair right next to me! It just makes me glad, for Kid, for me, for our new hosts to get a new chance. We’ll miss our guy. Others miss our guy and we are grateful to him. New connections and lots of care will show us the way to continue to do what we do best – filter and exchange and accept and toss back and make super urine for our new hosts. Wow.

West Loop, Under the Bridge

Daniel Hejazi Photography

Tunnel Vision

M. Fatin Ishtiaq

The Embodiment of Care

Nasser Al-Khawaja

Poetry

I’m frightened; is it too late for my heart?

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to consider a bit of art

Being walled in by white armors may be a comforting start, Until you’re the target that’s being stung with a dart

Don’t they know that communication can hit the bullseye? Because all that patients need are truthful allies

Nourish me with certainty, don’t ever lie Doctor, deep down, I’m still a butterfly

Have I seen better days?

Either way, that’s no reason to have no faith

If only they could pierce the perplexing haze, The key to my heart would be found with just one gaze

Central Park Golden Hour

Tara Pilato Photography

Midway Airport, Polka Dots

Daniel Hejazi Photography

Pi-oems

Mohamud Verjee Poetry

Teaching PI-oems:

Black hole seen (3)

Gone (1)

Retracing time? (4)

Math theory to solve (5)

Proof that you are a pure genius! (9)

Clever (2)

Enterprise in space (5)

Beam me up (3)

Visionary thought (5)

Universe (3)

Bang (1)

Quantum belief (4)

Is (1)

This impossible? (5)

Rheumatoid arthritis (6)

Painful (2)

Blood, joints, synovium (6)

Humanity (4)

Forever (3)

Can we hope (3)

Mankind can recognize emotion (8)

What Makes Up the Soul

Chiara Evans

Poetry

If the body is a reflection of the soul

Mine would be battered and scarred

Constantly aching, hurting

It’s dull but healing throughout the eons Mine is in pain, anxious, sad, always alert

If the eyes are windows to the soul Mine would be tearful and red Deep with love, but bloodshot and tired

I take light in and try to shine myself

Waiting and wishing to see that part of me again My soul longs for you This is mirrored in my pain

My soul, it struggles to shine these days Yet here comes a glow up through the cracks

If the soul is what determines beauty

How will mine every be made whole?

It’s green with envy and full of spite Angry at things for having not gone right

It will need a good polish and a reassurance That it’s will be okay

And if the soul is weighed when we get to Heaven

If I ever get to heaven for the nights like this Mine sure is heavy Pulled down by the weight of all the years From facing my demons through so many tears My soul is broken How will I ever be okay again?

If you’re not here to tell me I will be?

Doe Eyes

Keith Lascalea

Itch

Chiara Evans

Poetry Sometimes there’s a slight itch

And I have the compulsion to scratch

But I remember it’s tender there, I remember How it got there

I know more eyes than mine have seen it And people have probably noted it

But I choose to ignore the itch most days

I wish it weren’t there

Sometimes I feel It gets tighter

Almost suffocating, blinding All my thoughts turn to the feeling

Of skin and flesh rippling open and Bones shattering under the surface

Sometimes

Sometimes I keep it hidden

Hiding it in hopes others won’t see it It’s a constant reminder

Of the battle raging on Sword versus sword

Steel reverberating against steel

If you have the same tools, it’s just a question of skill

But I’m fighting with my weak hand

Sometimes it itches

And I’m reminded of you

Telling me it will fade over time

It won’t be this red and dark forever

You took my hands in yours

And when I think of that

It doesn’t itch anymore

And I’m reminded of you

Telling me it will fade over time

It won’t be this red and dark forever

You took my hands in yours

And when I think of that

It doesn’t itch anymore

Benediction

Lorien Menhennett Collage

The Future Looks Bright

Andrew Nelson

Essay

This recurring thought came again after the morning coffee. She had been coming to terms with the concept over the last couple months. Having “survived” suicide twice since the incident, it became clear to her that she wasn’t ready to die yet, and the ship would last her several thousand lifetimes over. Having the privilege (or from her perspective the obligation) of being the last human was starting to make certain adjustments to her outlook. Humanity had never been contacted by external life or had the faintest hint of it’s existence. At this point, if the scientists were right Earth would have been bar ren of life for over 10,000 years. As far as she could tell, she was the lone conscious being in the universe. Her life would be the fi nal word of humanity. She wondered whether it was better to rage against the dying of the night, or to join the rest of humanity as a finished story. Out here, so far away from home, she thought on the stories of the great explorers of humanity. Maybe her purpose was to be the last great explorer, maybe the thought would be enough to keep going for now. She had time to figure it out. A memory of her parents appeared, and with it the weight of the cosmos returned.

Chicago Apartment, Amusement Park

Daniel Hejazi Photography

Brief Thoughts on the COVID Epidemic

Hannah Cottrel Essay

Filing into work is like filing into line reporting for active duty. Soldiers with our heads down, faces turned away to avoid the spread of disease through the mist exiting our bodies unknow ingly. The fear that a particle of COVID rests on our shirt, our finger, our stethoscope is ever present. There is no real solace for a health care worker in the pandemic. At work we put aside any thoughts of normalcy as we hear constant up dates about the PPE and ventilator availability, along with the blaring alerts for the near constant intubations and codes.

As a pediatric resident, we are still treating our typical patients, the newly diagnosed teen with lymphoma, the ex-26 weeker on TPN, the medically complex child who has spent years of her life in our hospital. And yet now, we also have new patients, young people in their twenties, thirties, and even forties who contract ed COVID 19 and are now being treated by pediatricians, many of whom are now younger than our patients. We fight the urge to relate, to emote, to explain what’s happening to these fearful eyes, and instead we flee because one extra minute is an extra minute of contagion. If we get sick, who will treat our patients? We scour the internet for recommendations and guides to treating adult

COVID patients, and we review intubation procedures just in case one of our patients tips off of the razor sharp edge of stability. When we leave the hospital, after 12-14 hour shifts, there is no reprieve. There are thousands of questions, concerns, well wish es from friends and family across the country. And yet, at least for me, a young and single resident newly transplanted to New York City, there’s no one here. I fear transmitting the disease that I encounter every day, and any upcoming chance I had to see my friends or family has been cancelled. While many are able to work from home and share in their quarantine with roommates or immediate family members, health care workers have had to shun physical contact to prevent the spread of disease. My only physical contact with another human in my day is the brief mo ments I spend with my stethoscope to the chest of my patients. A moment that lasts forever and a second as I flee the room, hidden from human connection by my goggles, mask, and gown.

NYC Through the Fence

M. Fatin Ishtiaq Photography

Among the Child Believers

Lorien Menhennett

Essay

This morning it’s raining in Naggalama, Uganda. It’s been raining a lot the last two weeks, both brief, light showers and heavy deluges. Sod den, gray skies shroud the blistering, equatorial sun and the rain cools the usually hot air.

Naggalama is my home base during a month-long Ugandan stay in which I’m visiting a number of rural hospitals as part of research into palliative care.

For me, it’s a welcome respite from sticky heat. But for the Ugandans I’ve talked to, this is their equivalent of frigid winter.While I walk comfortably in a short-sleeve shirt, I see others shivering in their sweaters and coats. They look at me wide-eyed, and I return the gaze. It’s not a critical look, more one of surprise; shock at my (or their) response to this weather.

Other differences have arisen, some of these more philosophical, cul tural, and belief-driven.

A common topic of conversation here is family. Family is of utmost importance in Uganda. The measure of manhood for many here is how many children you’ve fathered. Not so in the United States. It is not surprising, then, that the average number of births per wom an in Uganda (5.6) is more than 3 times that of the average wom an in the United States (1.8, according to 2016 statistics from the World Bank). Some professionals I’ve spoken to want smaller fam

ilies. But I’ve seen people in the rural villages with eight, nine, 10, even 11 children, and not always enough food for them all.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this practice. I understand the desire to have children but my heart breaks when I see families that have more than they can afford.

Similarly, it’s hard for people here to comprehend the fact that at age 36, I don’t have any children. And I may not have any, ever.

“Don’t you want a child?” many have asked me.

“No,” I’ve replied, simply.

“But you will not be complete until you have a baby!” they’ve insisted.

“I don’t feel that way,” I’ve responded. “I find fulfillment in other things in my life.”

My principle always surprises, but the level of others’ incredulity varies.

“Lorien, are you normal?” one person asked me.

It took me a moment to fully understand this question. What did “normal” mean in this context? I realized later that “normal” might have been a euphemism for being heterosexual. The opposite, “ab normal,” then referring to being homosexual—still a crime in Uganda, although no longer one that gets you the death penalty.

This conversation about having children is inherently circular. I orbit my credo, and they theirs. But our diametric circuits never intersect.

Likewise, being divorced is a strange concept here. Being separated from your spouse, finding a new one, or simply having children with someone to whom you are not married — these things are common place. The act of a formal, legal divorce though, is not.

“Don’t you want to find a new husband?” people have asked me.

“I would like to,” I’ve said. “But I need to find the right man. It’s better not to be married than to be married to the wrong person.”

Frequently, after exhausting the topic of divorce, the conversation returns to children.

“But you didn’t even have one child when you were married?”

“No,” I’ve said. “And I’m glad I didn’t. It would be very difficult for me to raise a child on my own.”

Saying those words has always made me imagine what it would be like to raise a child as a single mother while also attending medical school. I shudder. I have the greatest respect for anyone raising children during this journey toward becoming a doctor, single parent or dual house hold. I find it hard enough to take care of myself, let alone take care of someone who is entirely dependent on me for their every need. I don’t explain all of this, although maybe I should.

“But we women in Uganda often raise our children alone,” one woman told me. “The husband often leaves. If you look at 100 schoolchildren, you would find that for 90 percent of them, the school fees are paid by the mother,” she said.

Those statistics aren’t backed by research, of course. But I know that while there are many good fathers and husbands here, the suggestion that women are the ones who generally tend to the children has some truth in it. Many women do raise their children alone here. If a woman can’t bear children, or can’t bear any more children, her husband may leave her, I’ve been told time and time again.

And if a woman becomes seriously ill, her husband may also leave her. I’ve seen that firsthand with the palliative care patients we’ve visited in rural villages. From a trip I made to Uganda in 2016, I remember one

woman who had terminal cancer. She had 11 children, some of them adults with their own families, but several of them young and still living with her. Her husband had left and found a new wife. He con tinued to “give care” — provide financial support — for the children while the patient was alive. But she worried about what would happen to her children when she died.

Uganda has no formal state safety net. No foster care, no welfare ser vices, no alimony or child support.

To me, having a child in this environment sounds terrifying. But for many Ugandan women, this situation is all they’ve ever known. What frightens them more is the thought of not bearing any children at all.

At some point, I always steer the conversation toward another topic, knowing that we’ll get nowhere no matter how long we discuss the merits of having (or not having) children.

In the end, all I can hope for is that I’ve done my best to listen and re main open to hearing about and discussing beliefs other than my own. To consider why someone might hold those different beliefs, even as I do the opposite.

I remind myself that cultural exchange isn’t about convincing someone else that your ideas are better. It’s about sharing what you do, finding out what they do, and talking about why. And at the end of the day, doing your best to respect each other.

Note: A version of this essay first appeared in the online magazine “The Ameri can,” www.theamericanmag.com.

Perhaps

Fatima Al-Binali Drawing

& Ryka Sehgal

Poetry

And the rain kept coming and coming and coming

And he walked to the mirror and met himself eye to eye And noticed that he saw there not a man he knew, but a boy in a wrinkled shirt

And he lifted his hands to his face and felt they were warm And his face was warm too.

Could he tell?

And his shoulders quivered, as they usually did not And his palms moved slowly back And forth across his forehead to feel for a change of heat And chance a way to convince himself that he could not tell really, what he felt And that the shiver of his shoulders bespoke a thrill of his mind.

Did it not?

And he had no one to ask And lowering himself to a chair, he wondered And gripped his arms in a lonely embrace across his shoulders, as others did not for him And would not

And he wondered when they might someday again.

But when?

And with shaking, aching arms he reached out for the cabinet

And fumbled back the clutter of cracked containers and old gauze And bottles

And grasped and groped for that bit of white-capped orange And once found, out it poured into warm wet palms And he swallowed.

Was it long until soon?

And his eyes held straight and heavy in his head

And they scarcely blinked as the boy began to flicker in the reflec tion

And in the weak light from the nearby window did the air glitter around them.

Oh, how beautiful the dust!

NYC is Closed

Rina Davidson Painting

DUMBO at Dawn

M. Fatin Ishtiaq

Just Think About It

Raihan El-Naas

Essay

A girl wakes up to the sound of her alarm clock and prepares breakfast. Getting dressed, she goes downstairs to the lobby of her apartment block.Taking a walk to a park nearby, she recogniz es a friend from afar, meets, and begins to chat. Soon afterward, she gets on a bus to work. Nothing strikes us as unusual nor grabs our attention. Why? Because we, as abled individuals, often take these activities for granted. These actions are a rudimentary part of our daily routine. We forget that there are people with special needs who would find it difficult to carry out many of these activ ities. Go back to the opening sentences and read them with a spe cific disability in mind. Start to ponder and process each phrase in depth. You will begin to see the story in a different light. How would she hear her alarm clock if she was deaf? How would she go down the stairs if she had paraplegia? How would she see, let alone recognize her friend from afar, if she was blind? Do these thoughts ever cross our minds as abled individuals, and raise our aware ness about disabilities and how those with them live and thrive?

Sadly, we tend to overlook the needs of the disabled, neglecting their perception of life.We may fluctuate between being thought less, and possibly insensitive towards them and being exceedingly sympathetic and concerned. It is disheartening how we grow tired of having to make accommodations for the disabled such as parking spaces or ramps.We are frustrated by a few simple adjustments that

may be critical for their safety and impact their lives significantly. We do not think twice when we have to accommodate the abled. It is time to eradicate the boundaries set and divisions created and view those with special needs in perspective. The days of stereo typing their disabilities, categorizing them, and regarding them as deficient are now over. Disabled individuals are not unhealthy, ill, or weak, and they should not be limited or condemned for any shortfall. They do not need anyone’s approval as they jour ney through their lives. They are successful as long as they are content with their own pace because that is what truly matters.

My Windowsill

Sonia Iosim Painting

What We Can Give

Nivita Sharma

Poetry

When they are awoken by the footsteps of a group of white coats,

When they stroll the hallways with their IV poles trailing behind,

When they open their eyes as the anesthesia wears off, When they ask “when can I go home?”

When you first step into their room at the crack of dawn, When you whizz past them in the hallways,

When you hold their hand as they wake up after surgery, When you go to check up on them,

Remember that checking their wounds, Remember that glancing at their ID band,

Remember that keeping their IV intact, Remember that asking about their pain

Is important for their care, Is important for their medical records, Is important for their safety, Is important for their discharge instructions.

But also remember, that as sick and well as our patients may be,

They are longing for a sign of simple reassurance.

What takes no time to give;

What takes no strain to give

…is just one smile

To calm their fears for just one second,

To show them you are listening,

To tell them they are not alone, And that you are with them every step of the way.

Even in the silence of a smile.

Diversity in Medicine

Barbara Sahagun and Tiffany Huang Photography

Medicine Cannot Heal in a Vaccuum

Yuna Oh Reflection

“Medicine cannot heal in a vacuum; it requires connection.”

I woke up to my alarm chirping an hour earlier than usual—5AM. “Five more minutes,” I would normally say to myself, snuggling deeper into the comfort of my blanket. This morning, however, I almost knocked over my alarm clock as I jumped out of bed to get ready. My patient had been waiting for this day for over 15 years—the day she receives her new liver.

The cold, unforgiving New York winter air slapped my cheeks as I rushed out the door. The world was dark and still, fast asleep in its heavy slumber. I was more awake and feeling lighter than ever, my feet dancing to the music in my ears as I headed towards the hospital. It was the day of celebration for my patient, Ms. Park.

Two weeks ago, I met Ms. Park. A small, Korean woman in her 50s looked up from a book that she was reading, her eyes and skin tinted yellow— jaundiced. She suffered from a longstanding hepatitis B infection which eventually evolved into a dreadful monster: cancer. “She doesn’t talk much, reserved, but very sweet,” I was told by my resident. “Do you think she needs a psychiatric evaluation?” another resident said, her eyebrows fur rowed in concern—Ms. Park had expressed feeling hopeless and lone ly during the most recent admission. Is it possible to stay hopeful after years of waiting, only to find out that there was no new liver for her?

“Ahn-nyung-ha-se-yo,” I greeted in Korean; I had already heard from my team that she was not fluent in English. With a look of surprise, she said hello, asking whether I spoke Korean fluently. I said yes and she beamed a

smile, expressing how happy she was to have someone that she could chat freely with. Little did I know at the time that such a trivial thing—an ability to a have conversation in their language—could be so meaningful to another.

In the two weeks that followed, I realized that Ms. Park was far from a quiet, reserved woman. Every morning I came by, she spilled out one story after another—from the new butternut squash soup that she tried the night before, to the adorable, red-haired kid who visited her next-bed neighbor. She shared bits and pieces of her life, from the time she traveled to South Korea hoping to find a matching donor to the precious moment that she first saw her granddaughter being born. Her yellow eyes spar kled, remembering the best and worst times in her life—the moments away from the hospital bed, the memories that made her who she was, Ms. Park, free from her hospital gown. In just two weeks, I discovered her incessant love for her family, her passion for cooking, and her desire to return to normalcy. Without a clunky phone translation service restricting our conversations, she was free—free to chat, to talk about anything that she wanted to, not only about the next procedure or the new medication.

I knew, a little too well, the isolation she had felt prior to my arrival, the desperate desire for human connection. An invisible wall surrounded her, impeding her from establishing deeper connections with others—a wall built by language and cultural barriers, too high to overcome with a phone translation service. I knew, because I had once stood behind that wall as a child. I was an immigrant, an alien. I knew, because I had seen it too many times up close, growing up. I was a child of first-generation immi grant parents, who remained behind that wall even after I had climbed over to the other side. Perhaps it was this understanding that allowed me to connect with her—she was not just a patient, a disease, a lab value.

A security guard nodded his silent hello as I walked into the hospital. I glanced at the wall clock behind him—5:40AM. As I nervously waited for the elevator, my insides churned as though I was waiting for my name to be called at the Oscars. Ms. Park was finally going to receive a new liver—an invaluable gift of time, where she has the opportunity to share the joys with her loved ones, indulge in her love of cooking, and live life free from the yellow coat that covered her skin. I walked in her room, excited for her. She was sitting up in her bed. Did I see tears? Were they tears of joy?

She shook her head, her yellow eyes glistening with tears, and I immediately knew. There was no liver for her today. The potential donor was not a match. I prayed all night, she said. I did too, a voice inside me said. I sat next to her and held her hand. We didn’t chat about the butternut squash soup, redhaired kid, or nostalgic memories. No words came out of my mouth. No words were needed. In silence, there was consolation—healing—through an inexplicable human connection that spoke louder than any language.

No one can circumvent the finitude of life. As medical professionals, we perpetually strive to extend time, to delay the inevitable, to control what we cannot. Over and over, however, we are forced to face our human lim itations, when medicine succumbs to the frailty of our body and yields to inescapable circumstances of life. We try our best, but at the end of the day, we are only human. It is in those moments that we realize, the rela tionships that we build, the sharing of human suffering, the connection that transcends language, are the only medicines that do not fail to heal.

June Sunset

Keith Lascalea

Chimsom Orakwue

Poetry

“Oh, how ironic,” you think

As the radio flips casually in a static-ed voyage, attempting to catch the intermittent signal as your car whips past miles of rural tree-topped land and stops in time to grasp the final words of a song-

The radio, sputtering, finally cuts off, the road ahead of you bathed in silence

Dotted houses crawling further and further apart in distance

You sit a little straighter, the hood of your sweatshirt falling to the back of your neck, and recite your lines in your head, Meticulously practicing and preparing for the scene as if your life depends on it,

Your arms lifting to heaven and the expanse of the furloughed veins in your hands wide open. surrender.

You begin.

“I can’t breathe.” “Everything hurts.”

“I’m unarmed.”

“This is my property.”

“It’s a cell phone, not a gun.”

“I’m only running.”

“I’m an essential worker.”

“Why did you shoot me?”

“I don’t want to die too young.”

Because in many ways, it does.

When they/your/my/his/her

SonDaughterMotherFatherSisterBrotherFriend

Are torn from your arms in the broadness of daylight Strangled

With foots upon their throats until their Yells turn to cries

And their cries turn to whispers And their whispers into silence.

Another life.

When your heart wrestles And fights against the chains

That wrangle it to the ground and with every lash tell you the ways you are not love, That you cannot embody love, That you cannot love yourself. Because Greedy hands

Tore you from the roots where you were planted

Uprooted you and buried you in lies of minisculity

And into the living death

Of being in a world that does not want you Does not value you

Does not love you

“You are a black body”

A slurred euphemism spat out of a downturned pale cheek, chewed and barely seasoned to veil the soured undertones

“You are a black body -trash -unimportant -thing

You cannot and will not matter.”

You look up and see you’ve almost cleared the rim of trees And finish practicing your lines

“I am… tired.”

The beige tail of your car makes the break and enters the free way

Your lungs shuddering in exhalation

Clearing yourself of the breath you were unaware you were holding

For so long

The radio chirps back up again, picking up the tail end of the song where it had left off-

“The land of the free…”

Light

Chiara Evans Drawing

HPI

Aretina Leung

Poetry

There is a contradiction in the art of medicine, an unsteady truce of quantified confidence, illness scripts, bullet pointed problem lists a tidy framework of who a person is.

The nighttime roars replacing the din of daytime traffic, where tired eyes close for just a second – sleep apnea. a foreign freelance photographer met her love in the city, with forgotten tears when the rhythmic melody in her growing belly ceased – fetal loss. a man in the dark with curtains drawn, a whisper of bony hands in a body hollowed out by a virus that cannot comprehend how it carries the shame reflected in his voice –HIV, non-adherent to medication.

We have templates littered with letters, our language blunted, we mold liquid concrete to construct complete histories. We must wait for it to harden and this is what they mean when they say that all we have is time, and this is what the art truly is, picking out the pieces to present while privately keeping the lessons we have learned in the stories we collect.

Onward

Tara Pilato Photography

Just In Time, I Found You Just In Time

Ilana Kotliar Photography

The Meaning of Peaceful

Paolo de Angelis Essay

She was what some people call a “rock,” both because of character and clinical history; her problems were too complex for her to be discharged anytime soon. The perfect patient for a medical student, and one we tend to gravitate to for many reasons. Despite the long list of diagno ses and medications, rocks were easy; it took a while to figure out the “how’s, why’s and who’s,” but once you had that down, the day-to-day rarely changed. Notes were quick to write, labs remained stable, and plans pending family meetings and social work magic. I gravitated towards rocks because I recognized that it was with those particular patients that my extra time became more valuable. Rocks had helped me realize that medicine was more about the human connection than treat ments and procedures; they needed talking more than doing. Medicine had failed them in a way, and for many there was nothing left to try; thus, they waited for families to take them in, nursing homes to free up space or death to come knocking at the door. Their days were measured by the routine of the hospital – rounds, medications at inconvenient hours and meals that often were delivered late. Medical students provid ed a welcome interruption to the pattern.

This new patient of mine was no different. She had cancer and it had seeded almost every corner of her body. She could no longer move her legs and had been trapped in an uncomfortable, intermittently soiled

bed since admission. Her organs were failing, but her mind remained cruelly unharmed. She had come to us in search of a miraculous cure; after a brief stint in the emergency room, she landed in the step-down unit on the eleventh floor. She was crying when I met her and our team provided little consolation; my resident jogged out of the room in no time, off to see more acutely ill patients on a list was too long for him to manage.

For the next four weeks I visited her daily – in a rush, poking and prod ding in the morning, more calmly in the afternoons, talking and crack ing jokes. She was a castaway on a sinking ship; her world had shrunk to the 36 x 80 inches of plastic that encased her, even the nightstand too far away to reach. She invited me aboard each day and I joined her, entangled between the tubes, my white coat gradually becoming coated by a sea foam of bacteria. We talked about her life and she showed me pictures of herself before she got sick: smiling, vibrant and resolute she looked so different. I met her friends, and dodged questions about her health. I helped her pick which bandana to wear from among twenty she had in a bag tucked away under her bed. Inside the room, I was more of a friend than a student; outside, from my cubicle six floors below, I ordered scans and prescribed antibiotics. I clicked boxes on the screen knowing she was going to get transported up, down and across the hospi tal for tests one could argue were unnecessary. I felt our doing was futile, but our medical inertia pushed us onwards.

Despite learning about her, as my patient and as my friend, I still re mained too disconnected. I tried and tried again to discuss her future and goals of care. I did not want her to die in the hospital; I imagined her at home surrounded by loved ones as a better alternative. I attempted to persuade her by leveraging our connection. I smiled and felt accom plished when I convinced her that she was dying and hospice would be the best option. I was annoyed when she refused a DNR the following

day and said she “wanted to fight”. The family was intermittently in volved, all reacting to the tragedy that was unfolding before them in their own, different ways. They had agreed that hospice was a good solution but then proceeded to delay discharge with bizarre excuses. With time, I grew frustrated: with each step forward, we would go two backwards the day after. How could they not understand that she had only weeks to live, I pondered. What I never asked was why she wanted to stay.

It was only two weeks after I had finished my rotation that I appreci ated how wrong we all were. I visited her in the ICU where she had been transferred after coding the night prior. Edematous, intubated, she looked nothing like the woman I had known. Her sisters and niece sat by her side. Gospel music was playing in the background. Although, they were crying, it was clear that this was what they all wanted. It was not peaceful, in the sense we, her caregivers, intended it, but it was peace ful for the patient and family to know she had fought “until the very last second,” even if the fight was lost from the start. We could not do much healing, but perhaps what we could have done, instead of demonizing this way of dying, weeks before she passed, was to support her choice from the beginning. In disagreeing with her and the family, we meant well; we knew what it was like to intubate a patient, the pain of ribs breaking during compressions and all the rest that was going to come. It was easy for us to think that their decisions were based on lack of understanding while in reality, clouded by our biases, we were the ones failing to grasp their true needs. They did not doubt the end; they simply wanted the path there to be the one they chose, fighting the fight as they could grasp it. We called it futile, but those were our words.

She coded five more times that day, clinging to this world through rounds of epinephrine and CPR. She died shortly after 1pm, the way she wanted to, and that is all we all can hope for.

Barn Dance Sunset

Jacqueline Howard Photography

Ascensus Volume IX

Ascensus is a student-run organization at Weill Cornell Medicine whose mission is to bridge the humanities and medicine through publishing an annual journal, along with holding events including lectures, workshops, and open-mic nights. Ascensus was founded by a group of medical stu dents in 2011 to provide a space for students to reflect on the practice of medicine. Since then, it has grown to engage all members of the Weill Cornell community, including medical students, graduate students, facul ty, house staff, nurses, social workers, administrators, and more. Over the past seven years, our Journal has featured rich visual, written and multi media work by these members of the Weill Cornell Community.

The Ascensus staff takes pride in the quality and diversity of the creative pieces showcased each year and hopes to continue serving the community through this publication and our events for many years to come.

We would like to encourage all members of the community to continue pursuing their creative passions as they reflect on their professions and the human experience. We look forward to receiving submissions for next year’s journal!

Lastly, we would like to thank our advisors, Dr. Susan Ball, Dr. Randi Diamond, Allison Lasky, and Quincy Leon. Ascensus is published with the support of Weill Cornell’s Office of Academic Affairs and the Liz Clai borne Center for Humanism in Medicine.

If you have any questions, would like to submit, or want to know how to support the journal, contact us at wcm.ascensus@gmail.com