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
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
Jeremy 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.
Adriano Mollica
University of Toronto
Class of 2019
I look at you, and I wish
there was some sort of incantation to whisper
that could string together all the fickle words
grazing around the summit of my throat
and instill a frenzy in their small limbs
so they may leap across the oceanic void
that is the silence between my mouth and you being healthy again. ...continue reading
Jason Gencher
University of Toronto
Class of 2018
An etiolated octogenarian calls out,
Barely audible beyond his room.
He beckons for a small sponge
To wet his cracked blue lips.
Pictures of his family are taped to his closet,
A makeshift fifty square foot home. ...continue reading
Adriano Mollica
University of Toronto
Class of 2019
the crevices in my hands could never course deep enough
to hold all the life that has moved between your synapses
and yet, in the basement labs of my medical school
I am holding every part of who you were ...continue reading
Rhea D'Costa
McMaster University
Class of 2016
The following short poem was inspired by the mounting frustration that senior medical students feel around the most wonderful time of the year – CaRMS applications season! If only there were evidence-based treatment guidelines for writer’s block… ...continue reading
Benjamin Huang
University of British Columbia
Class of 2017
This piece was written as reflection on the author’s rural family medicine experience.
s is for sechelt.
s is for sunday arrivals and saturday departures. for seven thirty ferries, sun decks, and sightseeing at sea.
s is for surprises, for stairs to a fireplace and floors of dark mahogany wood. s is for setting tables and chairs and settling in. ...continue reading
Simone Banh
McMaster University
Class of 2016
On inspection
I first notice your blonde locks
Bouncing as you take your seat
Face nestled in your foster mother's embrace
Blue eyes wide, stained from tears
Pale skin contrasting against your dark past
Gone from a home you knew so well
Loving parent turned into stranger
And there I saw my childhood friend
On percussion I hear
Empty walls still echoing with shouts and screams
Trying to survive each dismal day
Careless acts, naivety, unintentional neglect
Poor attachment and security
Siblings separated, joined and split again
But still you miss the walls you called home
And there I saw my childhood friend
On palpation I feel
Your grasp, trying to take the wheel
Each time a crash into flames
Explosive whispers crescendo into war of words
Years will pass and wounds will heal
Only snapshots in your box of memories
A new life is writing itself
The pen held by the powers that be
And there I saw my childhood friend
On auscultation I hear
The lessons you will learn and utmost care you will receive
But deep inside you still feel like an outsider
Fears that your time is limited
Conditional roof, pitied sympathy
And in my childhood friend I see your future
With my assessment I predict your plan
To turn away, start a new life
Leaving behind the pieces of your past
I hope you too will find what you need
Reflect on what you want
And find your happiness like my childhood friend