Tag Archives: poetry

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Michael Taylor is an MD/MBA student in the Class of 2020 at the University of Alberta

 

 

 

The whistle of far windy notes, painting the halls as if afloat.
Seat firm and wide, I lean to hear: each breath — one, two — becomes less clear.
Your room is grim, ravaged by age; matte-paint preserved… thrives in this cage.
My empty stare — toward the cracks, while blankets rise with lacking gasps.
I listen to the stories made — within these walls — they fill this space.
The beeps, each tear, the fallen cries; I slowly numb, no thoughts survive.
Our past, which you do not recall… I wish, some glimpse, you knew at all.
I try to grasp what brought you here, to understand your distant fears… ...continue reading →

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Kevin Dueck is a Family Medicine Resident (R1) at McMaster University who graduated from medical school at Western University in 2016

 

 

 

To be content
for
my family
my patients
myself.
A
goal.

...continue reading →

• 1 Comment

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Shawn Katuwapitiya is a Psychiatry Resident (R4) at the University of Ottawa who graduated from medical school at Western University in 2014

 

This poem was performed at the 2017 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, where Shawn was acting as one of Ottawa's representatives from the Urban Legends Poetry Collective. He regularly publishes poetry at http://psychiatryproject.tumblr.com.

...continue reading →

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Usman Khan is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Ottawa

Tharshika Thangarasa is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Ottawa

 

 

You find me:
Sprawled across the cold, dark asphalt.
Incoherent, incompetent, "incapable".
Hypotensive, bradycardic, cyanotic.

Overdosed. ...continue reading →

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Eleni Levreault is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Ottawa

 

 

 

They said medicine, when you begin,
Is like staring Mount Everest in the face.
You wonder how the mountain you climbed
Suddenly shrinks to a hill beside what is yet to come
Yet you start the climb;
This is what you’ve trained for, after all
And as summer turns to fall, the journey begins:
Genetics, anatomy, they consume all your time
As the snow settles in, the bell-ringers cease to chime ...continue reading →

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Ashleigh Frayne is a medical student in the Class of 2018 at the University of Calgary

 

 

 

My neck aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My mind, as though clouded by sleeplessness,
Or cushioned by some dull opiate.
One hour past, and the labour ward darkens:
The softly buzzing lights overhead pulse
And seem to warn of Queen Mab:
Midwife to thoughts unbidden, ...continue reading →

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Tharshika Thangarasa is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at the University of Ottawa

 

 

 

You wait,
And enter.

You have 60 minutes to speak.

To expose the intricate framework of your mind,
_______The context of your predicaments,
_______The emotional underpinnings of your life. ...continue reading →

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Grace Zhang is a medical student in the Class of 2019 at Queen's University

 

 

 

[For my Grandmother]

we don’t talk much these days
(which is mostly my fault, I know)
but if we were on the phone
right now,
I’d tell you how
when we sat in lecture learning about ...continue reading →

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Prasham Dave is a medical student in the Class of 2018 at the University of Ottawa

 

 

 

Sunken eyes my burden and a blazing smile my shield,
My patient burned under baleful fluorescence—purified en blanc.
My breaths were shallow. His shallower still.
I was haggard and he was in shambles,
I was shuffling and he was frozen,
I was ash and he was a husk. ...continue reading →

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author-pictureJeremy Zung

University of Toronto

Class of 2016

Taut sheets as cotton fetters

In curtained cloister bare

Enshroud the shrivelled limbs

Whose fingers flex in fetal curl

'Round liquid sleep.

---

Masked messenger in priestly white,

Hath divined th'encircling doom?

My fallen airways, Medusa's veins spell

Agonies untold.

 

Lips pursed, throat tight, and orbits sunk,

You scrabble to set me free

Of serpent tubes and catheter lines

Ensnaring, strangling me.

 

But stenotic hours, austerities

Have hemmed you in too far.

I fault you not, dear Hermes, but quick--

Prescribe your closing mercy:

 

The noose which crowns your chiselled neck can't

Auscultate mute screams.

I pray: release these sesame pupils to

Spelunk Elysian dreams.