Ascensus VIII

Ascensus

Ascensus

Ascensus Co-Directors: Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer & Catherine Han

Editor-In-Chief: Catherine Han

Events Director: Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer

Events Team: Chiara Evans, Xiang Li, Danny Luan, Suzanna Schmeelk, Carrie Sha

Public Relations: Chiara Evans

Advisors: Susan Ball, MD, MPH, MS Randi Diamond, MD Allison Lasky Jasmine Lucena

Layout: Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer & Catherine Han

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

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

Follow us on instagram @ascensus_wcm

To Our Readers:

The arts and humanities provide us with the space we need to reflect, to pause, and to ruminate. It is within the quiet of our thoughts, undisturbed by the outside world, where we are able to explore the people that we are and the people that we are becoming.

The students, physicians, research assistants, and staff that contributed to this year’s edition of the journal did just that. They created works of art that show us, their peers, the lens through which they look at the world. These pieces are diverse in composition, ranging from essays and sketches, to paintings and poetry.

By doing so, our artists reminded us of the capacity of the humanities to enrich our lives and forge connections between us. These connections extend from Manhattan all the way to our colleagues in Qatar. In this way, art overcomes distance - we are brought together in a space of shared creation.

The talent of the Weill Cornell community continues to astound us with every passing year. We sincerely hope that this journal inspires and moves you as much as it did us when we were creating it.

We encourage you to remain a part of the Ascensus community in the years to come.

Best, Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer and Catherine Han Ascensus Co-Directors

Table of Contents

Kaleidoscope Series, Study Number 2 Front Cover

Dr. Clare McVeigh, PhD | WCM-Qatar

Stillborn 12

Dr. Rodney Sharkey, PhD | Associate Professor of English Literature and Drama, WCM-Qatar

The Cadence of Chaos 13

Madeleine Schachter, JD | Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics, WCM

Rainy Reflections 14

M. Fatin Ishtiaq | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM-Qatar

Vigil In Memory Of 15

Briana Christophers | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Finding Your Self, 2019 16

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

Light-Hearted 17

Andrés Mansisidor | Postdoc, Department of Pathology, WCM

Almond Blossomed 18

Raya Alirani | Registrar, WCM-Qatar

Bridge of Sighs 20

Ilana Kotliar | Graduate Student, TPCB Program, WCM

Man Harnessing Nature, 1930's 21

Dr. Paul Miskovitz, MD | Clinical Professor of Medicine, WCM

Asthma in the Family 22

Dr. Aicha Hind Refai, MD | Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, WCM-Qatar

Mayoikomu 24

Angela Dandan | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM-Qatar

First Vacation Together 25

Brandy Holman | Administrative Assistant, WCM

Scars 26

William J.H. Ford | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Resilience 28

Tanya Jain | Neuroscience PhD Candidate, WCM

Fading 29

Tanya Jain | Neuroscience PhD Candidate, WCM

Stargazing 30

Jessica Lu | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Frozen in Time 31

M. Fatin Ishtiaq | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM-Qatar

When In Doubt Think Purple 32

Ilana Kotliar | Graduate Student, TPCB Program, WCM

Fortitude 33

Jamie Marie Gray | Head Librarian, WCM-Q.

the scene of the crime 34

Dora Chen | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

69th & 1st 35

Tara Pilato | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM

07: Morocco 36

Hanof Ahmad | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM-Qatar

Understanding 37

Victoria von Saucken | MD/PhD Student, Entering Class of 2018, Tri-I

The Trees Bend Backward For You 38

Nina Koester | P.A. Student, Class of 2021, WCM

The Cruel Arrow of Mitosis 40 Anonymous

Anatomy of Empathy

Wasif Islam | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

06: Typewriter Man

Hanof Ahmad | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM-Qatar

Light-Hearted (2)

Andrés Mansisidor | Postdoc, Department of Pathology , WCM

Fever Water 44

Dr. Christine L. Frissora, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

The Cypriot Imbroglio (For Suzannah)

Dr. Rodney Sharkey, PhD | Associate Professor of English Literature and Drama, WCM-Qatar

A Day Late and A (Sand) Dollar Short

Julianna Maisano | Research Assistant, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, WCM

In The Dark 50

Nahomy Ledesma Vicioso | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Rising Up Against Odds 51

Tanya Jain | Neuroscience PhD Student, WCM

4:19AM 52

Catherine Han | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Welcoming the Green 54

Aditya Deshpande | PhD candidate, Tri-I Computational Biology and Medicine

Calm 55

M. Fatin Ishtiaq | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM-Qatar

Febricitantem Neutropenia

Kevin Ackerman | MD Student, Class of 2020, WCM

Bryce Canyon 58

Dr. Paul Miskovitz, MD | Clinical Professor of Medicine, WCM

Melt Away 59

Whitney Parker | House Staff, Neurosurgery, NYP

Love Actually 60

Christina Zecca | MD Student, Class of 2020, WCM

Anshin 62

Angela Dandan | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM-Qatar

10: The Silence of the 'H' 63

Hanof Ahmad | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM-Qatar

Strong 64

Sohaila Cheema | Assistant Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research, WCM

Lioness 66

Chandrima Bhattacharya | Graduate Student, Department of Computational Biology, WCM

Zion Canyon 67

Dr. Paul Miskovitz, MD | Clinical Professor of Medicine, WCM

The Care of Comfort 68

Shobana Ramasamy | MD Student, Class of 2019, WCM

Windswept 70

Dr. Keith A. LaScalea, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

Winter Geese in NYC 71

Dr. Keith A. LaScalea, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

The Stargazer 72

Shahryar Rana | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM-Qatar

Above the Clouds 74

Jennifer Akl, MPH | Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee, WCM

Nature's Paradise 75

Chandrima Bhattacharya | Graduate Student, Department of Computational Biology, WCM

Filled 76

Dr. Christine L. Frissora, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

E 73rd 77

Tara Pilato | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM

Gifts 78

Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Knowledge 79

Sinéad O'Rourke | Content Development Specialist, WCM-Qatar

Anachronism 80

Ilana Kotliar | Graduate Student, TPCB Program, WCM

Water 81

Dr. Keith A. LaScalea, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

Remarks made by Richard T. Silver, MD at symposium in his honor, April 3, 2019 82

Dr. Richard T. Silver, MD | Professor of Medicine, Emeritus Director, Richard T. Silver, M.D. Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Center, WCM

Blossom, 2019 85

Heta Ladumor | Medical Student, Class of 2021, WCM-Qatar

The Lovely LOVE Concoction 86

Srijani Basu | Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Medicine, WCM

Medisyntax 87

Elana Weintraub | PA Student, Class of 2021, WCM

Waiting 88

Hyejin Kim | MD/PhD Student, Entering Class of 2018, Tri-I

Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh Robin 89

Samuel Kaplan | Graduate Student, BCMB Allied Program, WCM

The Bomb Cyclone 90

Tara Pilato | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM

Reflections 91

Sara Mohamed | MD Student, Class of 2020, WCM-Qatar

To the Sweetest Apples 92

Nahomy Ledesma Vicioso | MD Student, Class of 2022, WCM

Neurons That Wire Together, Fire Together 93

Julianna Maisano | Research Assistant, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, WCM

The "Toll" Love 94

Shan Sun, Ph.D. | PostDoc, Tri-I Therapeutics Discovery Institute

Fatal Attraction 95

Srijani Basu | Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Medicine, WCM

Argentine Tango 96

Natasha Smith | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM

February 15th: The Morning After 97

James Ryan | Neuroscience PhD Candidate, WCM

Bella Anima 98

Chiara Evans | PhD Candidate in Pharmacology, WCM

Colors of Love 99

Srijani Basu | Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Medicine, WCM

Echinaceas: What's in a Name? 100

Tanya Jain | Neuroscience PhD Candidate, WCM

Going It Alone 101

Dr. Keith A. LaScalea, MD | Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, WCM

Sunrise, 2018 102

Yana Zorina, Ph.D. | Senior Research Scientist, Genome Editing and Screening Core Facility, MSKCC

Sunset, E 70th Back Cover

Tara Pilato | MD Student, Class of 2021, WCM

Stillborn Poetry

Dr. Rodney Sharkey

He told me one night about that day. He walked behind She walked before Skeletal in her night gown Both Bereft

They never spoke of it again They had lost a child stillborn the hospital kept the corpse and mother left every possession in the ward. “Out” she cried and Silently across the car park my father carried the empty suitcase to his grave.

We are all sons and daughters of ghost fathers brothers and sisters of ghost siblings These who stretch their limbs across time teaching us how to love those that remain. Yet whether they beat or broke loved or mended hearts strive to feel alive when culled in pain.

So for a moment in a poem now let striving stop.

For in the end as at her beginning all will pass and spirit us away think us into light follow us out of time crying all the while in beauty in melancholic beauty, for the dead are all beautiful and still born.

The Cadence of Chaos

on Canvas

Schachter

Rainy Reflections

Photography M. Fatin Ishtiaq

Vigil In Memory Of

Briana Christophers

Finding Your Self, 2019 Beading

Yana Zorina, Ph.D.

Based on an image of a mouse retina

Light-Hearted Digital Art

Almond Blossomed

رهظيل ةبيئكلا ةيقن ةحئارلا كلت سفنتأ تلز ام ,ةدوربلا يقاوب نم لاجخ ابطر ءاوهلاو هيورم ضرلأاو سجرنلا رهز هحئار نيح حرفأ هحارلاو رفسلاو هلطعلاو فيصلا برقب يندعي زوللا رهز مودق .عيبرلا يف لاا مودت لاو ةردان يتوخأو انأ اهقلستن ءارضخلا ةمعانلا قارولأاب يستكتل هرجشلا لوحتتو ءارضخلا زوللا رامثل روهزلا لوحتت هرجشلا ىسنأ رفسلا هعمو هلطعلا يتأت . حلملاب هسمغنو رصعلا سلجنل ضماحلا رضخلأا زوللا فطقنو ءاتشلا لصفب امامت ىرعتتو ىرخلأا ولت هدحاو اهقاروا دقفت ءارفص ةنيزح يه ينلبقتستو لوليأ يف دوعلأ معارب اهدعب انيلع لطتل مايا رمتو ةسبايلا ةينبلا ناصغلأا للاخ نم لباقملا لبجلا ديدج نم لطيو زوللا رون .. يبا لوقيو ىرخأ هرم ةرجشلا يستكتو رهزلا

This is what my father used to say...

Our house was enormous and very old. Its floor was covered with colorful geometrically designed tiles that resembled a real carpet. The ceiling was topped by high, arched, stained glass windows, all with deep seating except for the sitting room which protruded into the garden, overlooking the almond tree that stood beautifying it. In winter, I used to see the mountains on the other side through the tree’s bare branches and in spring, this same tree radiated with almond blossoms which made seeing the mountains impossible. That almond tree was so elegant and graceful, not as tiny as the adjacent rose tree, nor as gigantic as the pomegranate tree behind it.

Every spring, almond blossoms announced the end of cold school days. Skies were blue, the world was green, and the atmosphere was full of colors and the aroma of different flowers. The earth was saturated with grace; one could breathe the scent of all kinds of flowers, especially the Narcissus. I can still recall that same beautiful, pure smell, that only lasted for the spring. Then, the tree flourished with green almonds that I used to pick and enjoy. With summer vacation came traveling, so I left and forgot my tree, only to return in September and find it sad, yellowing, and losing its leaves one by one until I could see the mountains again through the bared branches. Days passed and the almond blossoms came out and my father said: Almond blossomed.

Bridge of Sighs

Photography Ilana Kotliar

Man Harnessing Nature, 1930's

Dr. Paul Miskovitz MD

Photography

Asthma in the Family Essay

Dr. Aicha Hind Refai

A night shift in October. Asthma month. In the emergency room, the patients are everywhere. Lying on stretchers in booths, sitting on chairs against the walls in the corridors. Hair matted, faces half-hidden behind green masks, they endure attached to IV poles. Respiratory therapists move from one patient to the next, residents listen to chests and rest a reassuring hand on the arm of a patient. They talk to a relative or exchange views on how “tight” a patient still is.

Michael, the ER attending, leans against a wall and watches from the corner of the room. He knows which patient is not likely to walk out home tonight and will need a couple of days admission to the wardsand which one may go bad, need intubation and an ICU admission. He calmly waits.

Bob says, to no one in particular, “I am nervous”. He is the senior resident, always nervous in the ER; he suspects “one of these patients” is ready to take a turn for the worse. The way he says it, the patient is taking a turn to the worse just to spite him. He looks at me briefly and says, “You don’t look good”: something else he’ll have to worry about.

Asthma is a bad word in my family; I never heard it said aloud. My father grew up an orphan after his mother died of asthma in the 1930s: at age 8, he came back from school one day and saw women blocking the door to the house and packing the courtyard; that is how he found out his mother had died during an attack.

I don’t remember when we kids found out. The story was only briefly told, none of us had details and we could not bear to ask. Thinking of our father, a little orphaned boy coming home to a dead mother, provoked such intense sorrow that we in tacit agreement banished the word asthma from our vocabulary. We did not want to touch more pain.

I stood behind the counter documenting and watching monitors; the nurses handed me vital signs records - thoughts ran through my head. My father named me after his mother. I inherited her redhead but not her asthma. My father called me by her nickname and smiled when people commented I looked “so much” like her. I never wondered what

went on in his mind through all that. He was a calm and gentle man not given to brooding. Now I wondered where he hid the grief that we kids could not bear to approach.

My chest was tightening, and I felt faint. I pushed my body against the counter trying to steady myself. Bob slid quietly behind me, held me by the shoulder and steered me towards the exit. Michael waved us out and took over my spot at the counter. We stood in the cool evening air. Taking slow deep breaths, I visualized waves of air washing through me. Bob never said anything.

“I need to call my dad,” I said.

“In a couple of minutes. Breathe some more,” he answered.

On the phone, Dad's voice filled the space in my head. I knew he would have set aside the book he was reading and have removed his eyeglasses. While talking to me, he would be rubbing his eyes.

"Isn’t the ER busy tonight?" he said.

"It is…. Lots of patients with asthma."

A silence, then he said: “It is good you are there to help."

Mayoikomu

Sketch Angela Dandan

Scanned by CamScanner

First Vacation Together

Brandy Holman

Scars

Speech, Anatomy Memorial Ceremony, WCM 2019 William J.H. Ford

My classmates and I began most, if not every, session in the gross anatomy lab listening to a surgeon describe the work they do. Often, these highly esteemed clinical faculty would show a video from a surgery or give a brief lecture on how the anatomical structures we were slated to learn that day were implicated in their field of surgery. We learned that a firm grasp of gross anatomy forms the scientific underpinning of clinical practice.

In Book 19 of Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus has returned from his years of wandering to his home in Ithaca in disguise. Odysseus’s wife Penelope, not recognizing Odysseus but believing him to be a former comrade of her husband, bids the family’s old slave Eurycleia wash the stranger’s feet in a gesture of hospitality. Eurycleia fills a basin with water and takes hold of the stranger’s leg, whereupon she feels a scar on his thigh. At once, she recognizes that the stranger is none other than her master Odysseus, returned home.

At this moment, Homer interrupts his narrative to explain, in painstaking detail, how it was that Odysseus came to acquire this scar during a boar hunt at his grandfather’s estate. To the modern reader, this interruption appears superfluous—why not mention merely that this scar identifies its bearer as Odysseus and then proceed directly with the action of the story? Why the long diversion into the past?

The human body is a physical record of an individual’s life course. The body has a tremendous capacity for self-renewal after an injury; yet traces still remain. Consider the arthritic joint that begins acting up before every thunderstorm; or that a heart attack may be treated, and the patient fully recover, but the metal stent used to pry a coronary artery back into patency will remain in the body forever. Joyous events, too, are captured indelibly on the body: stretch marks that remain after the birth of a long-expected and much-loved child, or the scars following a knee replacement that allows a patient to walk pain-free once more. Our personal history is written in flesh and blood.

We may have come to the lab to learn muscular attachments and nervous innervations; more importantly, we came to lay hands on our first patient. I would argue that herein lies the true virtue of our course

in anatomy: not in scientific knowledge gained, but in a humanistic encounter. We learned, in some small fashion, to be Eurycleia. Unlike Eurycleia, we did not have access to the history our donors brought with them to the lab; that knowledge lies with their families and friends. Nevertheless, in the laying on of hands, we do not merely seek to discover a fractured bone or palpitate the viscera. We are feeling for the physical traces left behind by the stories of our patients’ lives. We are trying—however hesitantly in this first year of our training—to communicate that our ears and eyes are open to these stories. When a stranger arrives on the threshold of our clinic or our hospital, we will listen to their story and feel for their scar.

Resilience

Photography Tanya Jain

Fading

Jain

Stargazing Poetry

Jessica Lu

As I’m putting ketchup on my omelette this morning

I think of you

I think of you and how your French mother would “kill me if she saw that”

I remember your hand on my waist While we made breakfast in my tiny flat The smell of Barcelona after the rain and the way you stuttered in broken Spanish otra cerveza

To the bartender that first day

We searched for shooting stars above the Sahara as the warm sand whipped around us I had never seen anything like it before: They were intense sparks of light Dancing playfully across the night sky But their paths were unpredictable and the beauty fleeting

Please say you feel it too Say something Say anything?

Sometimes when I lie in bed

I can still see your hand reaching for my shoulder Fumbling in the dark To say I’m sorry

Frozen in Time

Photography M. Fatin Ishtiaq

When In Doubt Think Purple

Ilana Kotliar

Photography

Fortitude

Photography Jamie Marie Gray

the scene of the crime Poetry

Dora Chen

We abandoned the house, pancakes burning on the stove, two mugs on the countertop, music still seeping from the speakers, but that’s not how you know.

It's the soft turn of familiar lips, lingering warmth of half-made beds and lazy morning-voice sing-humming, interrupted mid-living, that’s how.

One of those mornings you asked, didn’t it bother me that your blue could be my green? But it didn’t. Only that your green was greener, your blue bluer, your blues bluesier. It was always that way — I watched you but you watched the world. Sometimes even now, when I wait at intersections, I feel the vertigo of standing beside a skyscraper, and I think of you.

One day she’ll ask. When she does, lie. Lie and tell her we finished the pancakes and put the dishes in the sink.

Sit with her, and by the time the coffee you never drank cools like bare feet running across kitchen tile, I’ll be miles away — you’re safe, love.

Lie and tell her we cleaned up after ourselves. Blame it on me. Tell her I left.

69th & 1st

Tara Pilato

07: Morocco

Acrylic on Canvas Hanof Ahmad

Understanding Poetry

Victoria von Saucken

Fascination and compassion held us together once, I witnessed your grief, anger and dwindling hope. Connection seemed true and strong as knowledge tightened our resolve for answers and hands across the table. Words had changed meaning for you like trees do from fall to winter, All I wanted was to understand you.

I knew only what I could see before me -a glimpse of you and your disease. You molded me into your champion and I fought, For knowledge and your suffering to end. Learning to care for another as their world slowly turns hazy, That taught me your suffering.

“Memory loss” weighs on me every night before falling asleep, I understand the growing dark spaces where memories once existed, Plans for five days let alone five minutes from now lost in today’s lens. It is May yet the calendar still stays March, Losing grip on belonging somewhere, everything old turning to new again.

I recall the many times I applauded you for your strength. How I did not realize your power till I beheld the everyday fight in her. To fight while knowing what is lost will continue to unravel is heartbreaking courage. Fear and sorrow expressed in eyes once foreign, now familiar to me is the greatest pain and motivation for this path I chose years ago in meeting you.

The Trees Bend Backward For You

Poetry and Photography

Nina Koester

The trees bend backward for you, No. They grow towards the sun. Our son, she argued. Does it matter? He replied.

They grow from old, decrepit trunks deprived for long enough to die. Yet there must have been some light, some sign, To turn up towards the light and try

Again And again

Each one faces another direction Angles acute, obtuse with stark, fatigued flexion

The time lapse we would need to observe such change and resurrection Does it matter that we missed the battle Or only that we witness him without insisting on correction

The Cruel Arrow of Mitosis

Poetry

Anonymous

Dear sister chromatid, where is our cohesin?

Our bonds weakened to a breaking point

And you seem not sorry to be freed

Are we then to take leave without a second thought?

Our cell to me torn asunder at the plate

And to you simply “grown apart”

If it’s ties you find stifling, Well, you won’t be free long, except of me So I beseech you, do not go gentle, sister, Do not grow gentle

But if it is me, not you, goodnight.

Anatomy of Empathy Art

Islam

06: Typewriter Man

Oil on Canvas

Ahmad

Light-Hearted (2) Art

Mansisidor

Fever Water Poetry and Photography

Christine L. Frissora, MD

Film of water thin sheet of liquid ice dripping over a hill in front of us over the hill spilling into the green valley below in a fever are voices fading

I am sleeping waking walking toward the film of water pouring into the hillside He wants to see me swim Ironman pink cap goes on goggles are on top

I am too tired to put the goggles on first head pounding they said the water was cold the water is soluble cool relief

I am gliding through it cool waves on my skin on my face shoulders loosening already Slim Aaron’s people in white robes lounge around the pool there is a voice or 2 the liquid is all mine

I hover at the corner of eternity between laps once or twice take off the goggles arms up propel to the bottom only 6 inches past my head soft coolness fever breaking head ice pick stop for now sliding through the water film Fever broken

The Cypriot Imbroglio (For Suzannah) Poetry

Dr. Rodney Sharkey

I

It is warm Burnt.

You are welcome

We are wounded

Warm, burnt, welcome, wounded – words.

You found yourself on a desert island Incinerated and wounded

But, yes, warm and welcoming.

As so often before

In no time at all

You grow cold

Like the furthest flickering star A brightness, frozen out, from afar.

Yes. You found yourself on a desert island, Momentarily,

Then lost yourself in no time at all

As so often before Making it up again

In no time at all

Making it up again

As so often before

With your pen in no time making it all up again With warm welcoming wounded words.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then you realise that you are not loved, enough and love is past.

And whole days are lost and among them the grass turns grey and dry.

And sometimes you want to speak and then you do not want to speak, then the opportunity has passed. Pain flares up and you watch the grass turn to rust.

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then you are not friends, and friendship has passed. And whole days are lost and among them balding earth, dead loss.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then there is somewhere to go, then you have bypassed. And wonder should you? Again?

You wonder if these things always end in pain yet as soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter they cease to matter, you are content and pain is past.

You spy a fountain shoot fresh water into the air and you are staying there.

III

I am in the ocean

You are on the beach

Although we too are blue As sea and sky Wouldn’t it be grand to dance into this yellow sun.

I can stand on the ocean bed So no question of drowning, literally.

But I am, in this moment, a migrant. I’ve come from no place called home and have no place to call my own. Like Stevie Smith

I’m not waving nor am I drowning, but I’m tired of treading water and would dance both of us out from beneath above.

I see you in my mind’s eye Still

In your blue swim suit

In the warm summer sun

You kneel and open the book I have wrapped and left as a gift on the sea shore. I hear a distant violin And we are gathered safely in Hand in hand we enter the Dance Our life begins.

A Day Late and A (Sand) Dollar Short

Julianna Maisano

Photography

In the Dark Poetry

Nahomy Ledesma Vicioso

In the midst of their comfort an all-encompassing togetherness bringing their feet off the ground levitating above, his words triggering waves of warmth down her back his voice, a smooth gentle kiss, inviting her to sail towards the unusual to wander through the softness of an ocean they created together the depth of which they had forever to explore while the wind caressed their skin they welcomed sweet shudders of satisfaction a deeper understanding so mutual with lips parted softly and whispers of passion naming the moons on their bodies traveling unprotected to new heights together feeling something so real melting into the safety of each other’s arms and with tingles and with magic all around them in the air what with love their heart exploding nothing else could quite compare.

Rising Up Against Odds

Photography Tanya Jain

Essay

Catherine Han

New York at 4:19 in the morning, the corner of 32nd and Broadway. I’m slumped against a piece of scaffolding, waiting for my car to arrive. There’s a pair of men screaming at each other in the park across the street, silhouetted by the lighted billboards. One finally slumps down crying, his shoulders shaking. The other one goes to touch him but pulls his hand away. Another man ambles past me before he pulls down his pants and starts peeing on the steps of the subway entrance.

A young Asian man comes up to me. His shoes are brown and his eyes are hollow. Would you like to go get jjajangmyun with me? My mother is dead. I meet his eyes briefly, and then look away. I’m sorry about your mother, but I’m trying to get home.

His voice is quiet. I just want to eat some jajjangmyum. He is clearly drunk, and I can’t tell if he’s lying, because I’m bad at that. I believe people too easily. But there is a kind of grief about him that clings to his black coat, that reaches out towards me. I think about my own Korean mother, about the foods I eat when I am homesick and want to return to my childhood. I think about the dream I had once that still haunts me, where I found myself in a world without my mother and spent the night screaming for her loss.

Maybe in one version of this story I go with him. We find a Korean restaurant still open at this hour and eat noodles covered in glistening black sauce in a lowly lit room. Old ajummas drift through the aisles to bring us plates of yellow radish and vinegar, their faces worn with the silence of five in the morning. We whisper about his mother. I tell him about mine. We arrange to meet again and eventually fall in love. We get married, and we thank fate for a four a.m. encounter in New York City and simple black bean noodles for bringing us together.

Maybe in another version of this story, I go with him, and we are almost to the restaurant I believed he would take me to when he pulls me into an alley and holds a knife to my throat. I freeze. My last thought before I die is whether his mother really is dead, or whether it was a lie all along. My name is published as a cautionary tale - another victim who walked on the streets

too late, too alone, too young. I become a story that my loved ones have to tell to explain the narrative of grief in their lives. My sister, my friend from high school, my girlfriend, she was murdered in the streets of New York, and that’s why I never go there anymore… All of my dreams come to nothing. Over the years, I am forgotten.

Maybe, maybe - and that’s why I love this city, with all of its stories, with all of its maybes. In my story, I politely refuse, and he walks away. My Uber finally comes and I doze off on the ride home before falling asleep in my bed. I wake up the next morning to my room bathed in the soft light of day. I make myself a cup of coffee, and I live.

Welcoming the Green

Calm

M. Fatin Ishtiaq

Febricitantem Neutropenia Poetry

Kevin Ackerman

Febricitantem Neutropenia

From the bed in the room at the end of the hall

The days can go by at a slow crawl

Hearing the early morning nursing station chatter

And the student asking all about the bladder

Here for the care and the chemo infusion

Appetite, energy all are losing

As the lymphoma hopefully starts to shrink

The immune cells all begin to go down the sink

Before checking to see the amount of saliva

The student notes the pale conjunctiva

As skin becomes color of the bracelets

Out the window also go the platelets

Skin dots appear you know the name I betcha

Why yes this is a classic purple petechia

But the whites that drop and all but disappear

Is the reason for writing about this nadir

One moment sitting calm in the armchair

Watching the TV without much of a care

The next it comes so sudden as a flash

It happens so quick to give whiplash

The temp in the room seems to plummet

As if one walked up to a high summit

Without warning the body begins to shake

As if deep inside there is an earthquake

And soon the face is covered in sweat

Something inside is surely a threat

And people come running from the station

To begin their urgent interrogation

Not knowing what part of the body’s affected Blood, urine, swabs, x-rays all are collected

Within minutes the drug stops the shaking

It already feels as though the fever is breaking

As fast as it came it quickly ceases

This one’s a rollercoaster of all the diseases

No bug, no virus, no fungus, no worm

The cause of the fever they cannot confirm Each morning the group all surrounds To say your nadir is quite profound Though days pass and counts are only slipping The team is content with vitamin Z dripping

The days are so very dully simplistic But then the student arrives optimistic He is excited that the labs that morning they drew Show white cells went from point-one to point-two! And soon the number rises over one And the stay in the hospital is now finally done Before leaving the student comes for a chat Not because it’s part of the discharge format But for these few days, even through all the strife The time spent together left an impression on his life “I wish you the best and hope you be well” And adds with a smile the joke they tell, “Though getting to know you has been a delight I hope I don’t see you here by day or by night”

The patient replies maybe we’ll have the pleasure to meet Someday, outside, passing on the street.

Dr. Paul Miskovitz, MD

Bryce Canyon

Melt Away

Photography Whitney Parker

Photo from an abandoned road in Sounkyo Gorge, Hokkaido prefecture, Japan

Love Actually Poetry

Christina Zecca

Love is all around, But too remains unseen.

It is purest white and deepest red And all shades in between.

It is a picnic on a hillside wood Colored by the afternoon sun, She smiles, bathed in golden orange, And his heart has been won.

It is a nurse’s tender touch Upon a sunken cheek, Comforting a tired soul Without the need for speech.

Or rather, a child’s carefree romp Along an umbrella-studded shore, And a mother’s hope to maintain His innocence, for one summer more.

Perhaps it is a neon street, Humming with idle sounds, A helping hand reaches out To the stranger on the ground.

For some, it is crisp pages, unsullied By oiled fingers and dogged ears, Filled with star-crossed stories of Love conquering all fears.

Or a weathered bottle Lapped at by the sea, From their glass prison, The author’s words set free.

A wrinkle-riddled countenance, Etched by decades of laughter, Beholds the one he lost, while Dreaming of life together after.

So in a world blighted by hate Let your heart abound, for Love actually is All around.

Anshin

Angela Dandan ScannedbyCamScanner

10: The Silence of the 'H' Acrylic on Canvas Hanof Ahmad

Strong Poetry

Sohaila Cheema

I am strong

But I falter sometimes when life makes me walk on pebbles, I need time to recover

I am strong

But I have moments of weakness when I am suffering within, I need to pause and breathe

I am strong

But harsh words and actions hurt my soul, I need to remove toxic people from my life

I am strong But I need hugs too, it makes me stronger

I am strong But I tear up sometimes, I also have a heart

I am strong

But darkness sometimes takes over, I need support at low moments in my life

I am strong But pain sometimes overwhelms me, I have emotions too

I am strong

But sickness at times engulfs me, my body needs to heal and recover

I am strong

But negativity sometimes consumes me, I need to re-focus on positivity and gratitude

I am strong

But my journey is unique, try and understand me

I am strong

But my love is never ending, some appreciation and return of love is always welcome

I am strong

But I am human too, my feelings are important

I am strong I am a woman

Chandrima Bhattacharya

Gir Forest, India

Zion Canyon

Dr. Paul Miskovitz, MD

Photography

The Care of Comfort Poetry

Shobana L. Ramasamy

It’s 6:30am

Your breathing is agonal And right now, it is Agony. You are hunched over in bed Gripping, Clutching, Heaving

I am at bedside, Uncertain, calling. Holding your hand.

Here I am to ask about your pain And there you are Eyes wide, almost proptotic As though you see what comes next And you are afraid.

“Before cancer, she was the glue of the family.” Mother for a child in need, Lawyer contending for immigrant families, Caretaker to a brother debilitated by disease.

Your family has made your comfort the priority. Now in a room of your own, A room filled with people from over five decades of brilliant life, You continue to hold them together. A most resilient glue.

It’s 6:30am. I walk in, Apprehensive. But what I see now is you At peace. Comfortable, Resting, Relieved. As though you are Dreaming something remarkable Of the family that will soon surround you Of all that you overcame In one lifetime.

Down the hall, I see the rush of white coats Hastening To someone crashing nearby To shake and compress them Out of their own serene dream.

Windswept

Photography Keith A. LaScalea, MD

Winter Geese in NYC

Photography Keith A. LaScalea, MD

The Stargazer Poetry

Shahryar Rana

Yesterday, I walked the deep Stirring the cold waters: home Roaming upon the sand And sand swept upon me

See, see how I come From beneath, below, high I wait

Above the deep sends me deeper Steeper, the mounds of sand: rock Lock my limbs in place, stop Drop slowly, slowly below Know, know that I come From beneath, lower, high I wait

The weight above eases, hear Searing into the stone, wind Thinned by the rain, gnawing Thawing this dry glacier

Here, here I come From beneath, high I breathe

Am I yet still so far below? Show me sun, light Right! Little suns charge the black Cracks in fresh dark plaster Faster, faster I go Flow from beneath, high I swim

The ground still, the water thin

In this strange cold place Pace around its smooth cold floor Shore? Beach? Can’t say Stray, stray further Whether beneath or high I dive

Into the daystar I see,

What other explanation could there be Atop this mountain Beneath the sea The clouds

Above the Clouds

Jennifer Akl, MPH

Nature's Paradise

Bhattacharya

Mount Titlis, Switzerland

Filled Poetry

Dr. Christine L. Frissora

There is a gold vase bold clear translucent strong Buried in the middle of the glass is a large splintered crack No one can see the defect from the outside or from the inside

Only the vase knows it is there One day there is a flower Somewhere water is placed in the vase then the flower

It has been picked and afraid of dying It tells the vase every fear hope wish heartbreak Slowly the vase fills from the inside What was empty is full The flower having emptied every petal of worry into the crack of the vase is vibrant in full bloom playful now becomes outrageous Makes the vase remember something makes the vase laugh They laugh together at the memories the flower had in the field They laugh at the places they wish to go They laugh at the things they try to do They laugh at their dreams and fantasies for the flower and vase of course can go no where really Imperceptibly slowly surely the crack inside the wall of the vase fills completely

Until the vase never remembers the wound

The flower lives and dreams Together they are enough Together they are happy Together they are everything

E 73rd

Photography Tara Pilato

Knowledge Essay

Sinéad O'Rourke

We breathe deep and dive

Searching for what we know is hidden in the sand

Feeling

with our fingers for the new that lie buried just within our reach

Trusting our ropes to guide us back up to air

Before our own is gone

Clutching our new pearls.

We stop. We breathe. We map. We move. We breathe and dive

Gifts

Speech, Anatomy Memorial Ceremony, WCM 2019 Pauline Flaum-Dunoyer

One of my favorite people who once shared the world with us said, "When you learn, teach. When you get, give."

We have learned. So we must teach. Teach ourselves, teach others. We have gotten. So we must give. Give to others and to ourselves.

I am not sure the breadth of what we’ve learned and certainly the depth of what we’ve been given can be measured within scientific or mathematical bounds. So in return for an immeasurable gift, I say thank you. And thank you again. And thank you always.

Quote by Maya Angelou

Anachronism

Photography Ilana Kotliar

Water

Dr. Keith A. LaScalea

Photography

Remarks made by Richard T. Silver, MD at symposium in his honor, April 3, 2019 Speech

Dr. Richard T. Silver

For a nation that emphasizes youth, America spends a lot of time obsessing about retirement. So said Jim Michaels of the Wall Street Journal. The Medical College thinks a lot about it, too. As evidenced by our e-mails, our human resources department has organized several conferences on retirement and advice on 401Ks.

Years ago, a patient of mine gave my son a set of the World’s 100 Best Books. Although he rarely opened these books, I did and from time to time I browsed through the covers. Looking at a commentary on the ancient philosophers, I remembered that our friend Marcus Cicero had some thoughts about retirement more than two thousand years ago. He said that retirement and becoming an elder were wonderful for the soul. After struggling with decades of lust, ambition, strife, and quarreling, one’s battles were at last over.

Cicero believed that with the mind no longer clouded by passion and desire – the source of many of the world’s ills – one could then live quietly, in contemplation of a life well-lived. Of course, Cicero did not need to worry about a 401Ks, long-term health insurance, Presidential elections, or getting a paper published in a medical journal.

But his recommendations do confront the fear many have in considering retirement. Work keeps us busy, defines our value in society, and often gives us a social life. What happens when it all goes away?

Maybe that’s why Cicero did not follow his own advice. He did not stay on the large farm to which he retired. After he wrote his essay, he was drawn back into public life. Maybe boredom or his ego got the better of him. Soon after Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, he became involved in violent infighting, and was killed by Marc Antony’s soldiers as he tried to flee to Macedonia.

So, should he have stayed on the farm which he loved? I don’t know how you would measure a man’s worth by a solitary existence on a farm, and perhaps neither did he. Basically, I’m not

interested in it.

That’s why, beginning July 1st, although I will formally stop seeing patients, I will continue to see them in a modified fashion, assisting Dr. Abu Zeinah, our gifted new MPN specialist. And I will continue my clinical research activities in the MPN Center.

I guess that, having reached my 90th birthday, I’m rightfully considered an elder. For some people, that term means someone who is ready to go out to pasture, but to others – including me -it has a whole different context.

I think staying “relevant” is more important than worrying about being considered as an elder. Let me point out to you that the term “elder” is very relative. Nowadays, particularly in Silicon Valley, a 45-year-old man surrounded by 25-year-olds is called an elder. In Cabo San Lucas, on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific, there is now a very expensive retreat which was written up in the New York Times a few weeks ago. The owner, an entrepreneur named Chip Conley, offers week-long, $5,000 sessions on how to be a “Modern Elder.” He was surprised to find that the first applicants to the program ranged in age from 30 to 74 years, with an average of 52.

The article notes that older millennials, those in their midthirties, came of age on the cusp of the digital revolution. The arrival of Generation Z to the workplace, is showing millennials what a true digital native looks like. The median age of a worker at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Space X is 29. A recent study showed that the hiring rate seems to slow once someone is over the age of 34. In this context, millennials are already elders.

In medicine, we are fortunate that we do not have to suffer from the same perceptions as folks in Silicon Valley. To me, what is most important is what determines relevance for a particular individual. One study showed that a janitor who sweeps floors in a hospital thinks he has a much more important job than a janitor who sweeps floors in a bank or a subway station. Finding meaning, whether as a janitor, a banker, a board chairman or a physician, is difficult work. It can’t be taught. But if we are lucky enough and try hard enough, we can remain relevant, regardless of age.

For me, and I hope for many of you in this room, there is a continued sense of exuberance and excitement when you are on

the cutting edge of making a new scientific or clinical finding — even a minor answer to a provocative and puzzling aspect of an illness. There is nothing better than connecting that discovery to the treatment of a patient who has sought your help. When it leads to a cure or the remission of a disease it is a real high. The feeling of relevance is fantastic.

As a clinical investigator, I’ve published many articles in leading journals and written several books, and I am very proud of that. But as a physician, there is nothing more satisfying than when a patient says, “Thank you doctor. I really appreciate what you have done for me.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is relevant to any elder – of any age.

Blossom Painting Heta Ladumor

The Lovely “LOVE” Concoction Essay

Srijani Basu

The letters that make up the word Love have often intrigued me. Each letter has a distinctiveness that I feel gets lost in the cacophony of the word.

L, with its straight lines and no extra ounces, for instance, looks like the handiwork of someone who likes all things prim and proper.

It was perhaps the labor of some very whimsical gentleman that gave the voluptuous O.

V must have been the creative inspiration of someone meandering along life’s solemn main searching and seeking a path.

E, I believe, is the hopeless creation of someone who willfully lingered over the same shape and kept repeating it.

Love brings them together, ties them in a bond where they lend sanity to each other. Pieced together they create a new identity – the meandering and confused V finds home in “love” amongst the lost E, the buttoned up L and the curvaceous O.

Love is bond that unites the crazy, the sensible, the quiet and the raucous to create a heady concoction.

Medisyntax Art Elana Weintraub

Waiting

Hyejin Kim

Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh Robin Art Samuel Kaplan

The Bomb Cyclone

Photography Tara Pilato

Reflections

Photography Sara Mohamed

To The Sweetest Apples Poetry

Nahomy Ledesma Vicioso

Was it present in that theater as we watched a funny movie?

I have tasted it in the sweetness of every delicious smoothie. It tickled our insides as we booked our first trip together (!) It has kept us warm as we walk next to each other in the cold weather. I notice it in every single picture, and I feel it with all the hugs. It pours out with every laugh that seems to deplete the very air that fills my lungs.

It even lives in the past of every silly argument and every illusion, and grew even stronger as we faced those together and found a solution. I heard its low giggles during our failed study session, and in every single embarrassing confession. It sparkles in my eyes when you make me smile.

It comes up between my thoughts when I praise your expensive style. It lives in your confidence which I so admire. It breathes deeply with the calm that you inspire.

I find it in the dirt beneath my shoes from the strolls we take, in every chocolate chip pancake and every Oreo shake. It woke me up during our late-night conversations. It read it in that birthday card and in every congratulations. Do you see it? There it is.

In every episode we watched, no matter how scared. In every “I miss you” -especially the ones never said. In every bet and every dare. In all of the little moments that we share. In every dance move, in every song. In every ping and every pong. In every sarcastic comment, and every snack that you stole. In every single time that you make me feel whole.

Calling forth many of our memories and all of it to say that you are the apples that I picked somehow and I realize that now you are my home away from home you brighten up my days thank you for your friendship and your presence for teaching me about love in the strangest of ways.

Neurons That Wire Together, Fire Together

Photography Julianna Maisano

The "Toll" Love Art

Shan Sun

This piece was made by arranging the coordinates of two Tolllike receptors’ crystal structures. The picture was generated using PyMol.

Toll gene, which encodes Toll-like receptor, derives its name from the Nobel Laureate Christina Nüsslein-Volhard’s 1985 exclamation, “Das ist ja toll!”. The adjective “toll” means “great” and “amazing” in German.

Fatal attraction Poetry

Srijani Basu

The inferno rears its ugly head

Refusing to be put to bed

The violent craving grows Gnawing on my insides Refusing to go

The cheese dripping from the pizza

Tips the scales

My weakening will Can’t fight these ills The tempest beats It asks me to heed And so I concede Plummeting into the abyss

For another round of bliss

Argentine Tango

Photography Natasha Smith

February 15th: The Morning After Art

James Ryan

Bella Anima Poetry

Chiara Evans

One eye was red and the other was white She caught herself searching in the dead of the night Looking for all the time she couldn’t replace She wondered how she could ever be the optimist But she kept walking

She’s being broken down to fragments, piece by piece Torn into by the thoughts that never seem to cease She stepped with purpose, lightly and fluid Gathering sparks at her fingers and smoke on her lips As she kept walking

Against the rocks, arrows, and all else they could throw Her scars were melting away, little did they know The heat was growing, frequency ringing Little else could anyone do to stop her And she kept walking

Soon beginning behind her the colors would change The shimmering haze and world above soon became strange Teeth echoed without sound and reverberated in this battlefield

The dissonant piano chords fading off in the distance Then she kept walking

She had dark smears on her face Ashen warrior paint as a saving grace She stepped with steel and out of the clouds

Emerging brighter, catching fire Still, she kept walking

Colors of Love

Basu

Echinaceas: What's in a Name?

Jain

Going It Alone

Photography Keith A. LaScalea

Sunrise, 2018 Beading

Yana Zorina

Creative interpretation of a stem cell rosette generating mature neurons

Ascensus Volume VIII

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 students 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, faculty, house staff, nurses, social workers, administrators and more. Over the past seven years, our Journal has featured rich visual, written, and multimedia 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 Jasmine Lucena. Ascensus is published with the support of Weill Cornell’s Office of Academic Affairs and the Liz Claiborne 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