Shez Kassam is a medical student in the class of 2019 at the university of Alberta
Across, eye to eye
Armchair, arm’s length
The heart suffers—pathologic
No monitors or stethoscope to be seen
Tag Archives: poetry
Addicts anonymous
Simraaj Kaur Powar is a Family Medicine Resident at Western University Windsor Campus
Sukhbinderjit (Nikki) Powar is a Family Doctor in Mississauga
The concept of addiction,
Is it science-fact or fiction?
Sex, drugs, or alcohol,
Get involved, and you’ll lose it all.
Face the reality; time to confide and confess.
To get it off your chest or cause you more distress? ...continue reading
meta static
Kacper Niburski is a medical student in the Class of 2021 at McGill University. He is also the CMAJ student humanities blog editor.
meta static
food undigested on the chest
breasts already pancakes
they will laugh when reaching under
the napkin of my body
they the strong
they the knowledgeable
will the question caught on my throat
survive the morning ...continue reading
A Shipwrecked Midnight
Ashleigh Frayne is a Family Medicine (R1) at the University of British Columbia.”
The pavement darkens as the chill of the night settles
Stretched across the lap of the day, a shadow cat
Moving swiftly down the street, between pools of light
Cast by warm windows, freeing the damp of evening
To reach long fingers down my spine, the sigh of today.
I rub my eyes, crusted with the dread of tomorrow.
Voiceless
Arnav Agarwal is an Internal Medicine Resident (R1) at the University of Toronto. Check back the last Thursday of each month for a new featured piece as part of his series (Doc Talks: Reflections to Reality)!
We are challenged to embrace frailty and a disarray between mind and body when we encounter patients at the end of their life. As we seek to nurture a place of comfort and wholeness for them, we are tested to bear witness to their helplessness, to appreciate their intrinsic values not only as patients but also as people, and to preserve their dignity. Moreover, we are presented with an opportunity to appreciate the internal struggle of their loved ones as they are confronted with a disconnect between the person they have known and loved, and the patient we provide care for in times of declining health.
Penned based on the reflections of numerous families I met on the wards, this piece strives to give a voice to the struggles many encounter alongside their loved ones in the end of life.
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Our voices echoing ...continue reading
egophony, and other sounds
Kacper Niburski is a medical student in the Class of 2021 at McGill University. He is also the CMAJ student humanities blog editor.
murphy’s sign
yellow on the horizon
with a dark more total than
fingers moving in small steps
and smaller spaces
an ambulance is in the distance
your breathe is on my neck
what is this gall
how do you hold me
with all your living
The other side of the table
Arnav Agarwal is an Internal Medicine Resident (R1) at the University of Toronto. Check back the last Thursday of each month for a new featured piece as part of his series (Doc Talks: Reflections to Reality)!
Practicing medicine with care
Arnav Agarwal is an Internal Medicine Resident (R1) at the University of Toronto. Check back the last Thursday of each month for a new featured piece as part of his series (Doc Talks: Reflections to Reality)!
Pieces of a puzzle inherit meaning not by their individual qualities, but by being pieced together into context. Good medicine — and good healthcare — are similar: they rely on understanding patients as people, and clinical presentations as brush-strokes forming part of a bigger picture. ...continue reading
Bipolar
Shubham Shan is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Toronto
How to read a cleave poem:
- Read the left hand poem as a first discrete poem.
- Read the right hand poem as a second discrete poem.
- Read the whole as a third integrated poem.
Twenty-six-hour days
Arnav Agarwal is an Internal Medicine Resident (R1) at the University of Toronto. Check back the last Thursday of each month for a new featured piece as part of his series (Doc Talks: Reflections to Reality)!
Once an elastic band is stretched beyond its limits, it is difficult for it to return it to its unstretched state. Burnout represents a similar phenomenon: an erosion of one’s sense of self and a reflection of emotional over-exhaustion, leading to disinvestment and depersonalization. Years of intensive training, long working hours, increased managerial responsibilities, resource limitations, emotionally-involved patient and family encounters, fear of limited job prospects and litigation, and mounting clinical and non-clinical responsibilities, among other demands: physicians and other health care professionals represent a highly vulnerable group susceptible to burnout, with some estimates suggesting close to 50% of physicians being affected. Evidence suggests that physicians experiencing burnout are more likely to make poor medical decisions, share more tenuous relationships with co-workers, experience more individual and personal relationship challenges, and suffer higher risks of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Physician burnout has also been associated with differences in overall quality of care, system-level costs, and rates of staff turnover and absenteeism.
This piece focuses on the compromise some residents and physicians make in placing themselves second while dedicating themselves to the care of others, and the silence that some encounter while struggling with burnout. It is encouraging to observe that dialogue around burnout and mental health is growing at individual, institutional, and systemic levels over time. This piece is part of that conversation. ...continue reading