Volume 14

For my doctor partner, Ryan

Day in and day out,
You support me unconditionally throughout.
From exams, studying, clinic and all,
You are my rock, my support, my person I call.

You are the silent hero that keeps me going,
doing things like groceries, cleaning, and laundry folding.
On this crazy life river you keep us floating,
Even when I’m exhausted and you are the only one rowing.

You may look at our situation with frustration or dismay.
In this moment, you are rightful to say;
Where is my recognition, my achievements, my degree?
Do I not work so hard to get even an honorary MD?

With your strength and commitment, words cannot articulate worthy
gratitude,
The only thing that comes close is my simple and humble ‘I love you!’

Between the whiteboard schedules and half-erased plans,
I stand with borrowed stethoscopes,
trying on futures like ill-fitting coats.

Each hallway whispers a different life.
Surgery speaks in clean lines and commitment,
hands decisive, time segmented by sutures and scars.
It promises clarity:
cut here, fix this, move forward.

Medicine counters softly,
layers upon layers,
questions that refuse to close.
It asks for patience,
for comfort with ambiguity,
for listening longer than feels efficient.

Pediatrics offers borrowed courage,
small hands trusting without condition,
joy braided tightly with fear.
It warns me:
your victories will be loud,
your losses unbearable.

Psychiatry sits quietly in the corner,
watching me watch myself.
It knows I carry stories home,
that I measure suffering beyond labs and imaging.
It asks whether I am willing
to hold pain without fixing it.

Every specialty reflects a version of me
I could become
and a version I must abandon.
Choosing one means letting the others go,
and no one teaches you how to grieve
the doctor you will never be.

So I weigh call nights against dinner tables,
precision against presence,
identity against endurance.

I ask whether fulfillment is found
in mastery,
in meaning,
or simply in staying human.

Some days I want certainty.
Other days, I want honesty.
Most days, I want to believe
there is no wrong choice,
only a path that asks
for my whole self.

And maybe that is the answer:
not which specialty I choose,
but whether I choose it deliberately,
with eyes open,
knowing that becoming a doctor
also means becoming someone new.

The hum of a finely tuned machine
The rhythm of a rotation
The beats to hit in a presentation
Nothing sounds sweeter to a clerking clinician

I pre-round, round, then check in again
I keep one eye on the fetal monitor
Time passes
This baby keeps missing his cue

No worries, I have a plan B
Okay… so we move on to plan C
To confess, I have no plan D– cells
Decelerations

The hum of operating room lights
The rhythm of a team working in sync
The beating of two hearts
Nothing,
Nothing– sounds sweeter to a clerking clinician

His cries were strong, like when he raced out of the womb and into unsterility
Crescent
like he was as a fetus. But then he was safe and calm
A mushroom cloud of doting, probing around him
But did not make it past the sound waves he generated
A shield, an attack on Fragility
Serenity could not find him now
Not until he mewled, pulsing in my arms
I swelled around him

Fleeting hope– will it ever escape,
Or does it lie to us, rehearsed and restrained?
I watch as she withers beneath measured light,
Wondering if our devotion is still right.

If it were mine to bear, I’d take the ache from her mind,
Bottle it, label it, and leave it behind.
Still, we whisper “maybe” like a practiced prayer–
It’s my fault we can’t, and she must be the one to bear.

Too cold is the room where we try to kindle life,
We beg that it brings some fire in these dark times.
Love translated through sterile tubes and centrifuge,
All the tools at our disposal, hands gloved and precise.

We trust that none of them fail us.

It’s a song and dance– timed steps, borrowed joy,
Waiting for meaning in bloodwork and ultrasounds.
And though I don’t know what waits at the end of this road,
I hold the image of her like a promise–
Soft, unblemished, but alive.

 

…………………………………………………………………….

First week of medical school reproductive unit
I learn that my biology, too
Betrays me.

Sperm are trust fund babies
With everything laid out before them.
Spermatogonia, like a neat row of begonias
Give rise to myriad spermatozoa
That travel in a rowdy pack
Through an expertly arranged series of tubules
Receiving doses of vital potions along the way.
A fresh fructose and vitamin C energy boost
from the seminal vesicles.
And a hearty, pH-balancing protein shake
From the prostate gland.
The pack goes for a joy ride
Down the well-lubricated urethra
Bursting out of captivity in a display of virility.
I can practically hear the applause.

My oocyte’s journey is not so glamorous.
The ovary, a ball of follicles and connective tissue
Has no exit signs or water slides.
The maturing follicle must so engorge
That it explodes
Forcing open the ovary’s sealed walls
So that a single oocyte may be released
Released into…
Not a tube, hallway, or tunnel
But the gaping darkness of the abdominal cavity
Haunted by writhing intestines
Where the oocyte risks disappearing into oblivion.
With luck, the tentacled fimbriae of the oviduct
Will capture the lonely oocyte
Allowing it safe passage to the uterus.
Meanwhile the ruptured follicle left behind
Fills with blood – a central clot.
The ragged wound eventually fills with scar tissue
A permanent reminder of this harrowing ordeal.

The referral requests a small miracle:
ICU, clots, comorbidities.
Needs contraceptive planning.

A first, the attending says—
a discharging clinician peering
beyond the present crisis
to the future one often left unnamed.

She splits the list,
passes your case on.
I’m grateful you’re coming
yet can’t ignore
the small relief of distance.

Your chart is a language
I do not speak.
I only recognize the punctuation:
hard stops,
exclamation points,
ways in which pregnancy may not end
in the miracle of life.

Hours pass; rooms stay full.
I go in.
I pull up a chair.

You are not upset, just tired.

I ask the questions I have.
You answer other questions.
We miss each other
until I fall silent and loosen my grip
on my template—
and wait.

You cry, clutching your partner’s hand.
The room stills.

And then, like a door closing, you say:
I’m hoping to conceive.

She looked to me
With quiet apology, and
Not a word spoken.
I got to work, cleaning
her up as we had done
so many times before.
She stood, shakily, gripping
the rail as I wiped through gritted
teeth and eyes begging to be closed.
All my sense bathed in that
putrid aroma, surpassing the mask I
put all too much faith in.

We bear witness to
each other’s torment. Mine of
a young man caring for
geriatric infants. And hers,
Hers is a prison so silent, where
both memory and thought
vanish w ith each breath.

But she knows.

I see in her eye the misery
of time, and life’s cruel punishment,
a soul residing far beyond the
blank window of her pupil.
Though I only know the shell of
what was—the living sarcophagus of
her past.

And, as I wipe, praying for
my miasmic end, she looks
into my eyes and says, “Well, Shit.”

The sounds of machines begin beeping from the hall
Looking out the door, you hear a loud call
Staff is seen running, making sounds of drums
Something sets in, feelings that numb

“Grab the cart”
“Find the nurse”
Directions restart
But things get worse

Although you are in pain
There is time to wait
As there is a family
Unknown of their loved one’s fate

As your heart rate increases
And you begin to sweat
Your pain suddenly ceases
But the mind cannot forget

You lie awake thinking
of the room adjacent
But now this time
From the perspective of a patient

Diagnosis
Impatient rad read,
devastation diagnosed,
sunburst appearance.

Decision
Deadly appendage,
her choice rotationplasty,
with trepidation.

Defiance
Muscle memory,
new neural pathways are formed,
resilience defined.

At the North end of the hall on the second-floor unit
A room adjacent to a wall of windows
A view of mountains, sunshine, a drying lake
A mother sits with her child, under colorful soft blankets, stuffies, tubes, and tape
A room with butterflies, sunlight, and color
A trio of kids on a bed, young and holding on to each other, the laughs, the
fun, the stories,
Their tears.
A quiet room adjacent to a wall of windows, no beeps, no machines breathing
A mother holds her trio, whispering softly of love, acceptance, peace
A father sits bedside, a small hand in his, pain in his searching tear filled eyes
A team clad in greens and blues, standing vigilante, hearts open, strong
As tears fall from cheeks. A final check after only minutes, no more fears, no
more breaths
No more beats.
A pair of kids, a mother, a father forever changed
A team clad in greens and blues leave, duties done, objectives accomplished
Hearts heavier.
A few hours later, at the North end of the hall, on the second-floor unit
An empty room adjacent to a wall of windows
A missing bed, blank walls, a floor dried of tears
A day of rounds, notes, and treatments completed
An end to a long week with too many gone too soon
A new day, a new mingling of greens and blues
A mother sits with her child, under Spider-Man blankets, stuffies, tubes, and tape
A view of mountains, sunshine, a drying lake
A room adjacent to a wall of windows
At the North end of the hall on the second-floor unit.

It can’t be easy giving your heart away.
Or that of your mother or child so that
young naive doctors can pass a test.
But I stood corrected as rows and rows
of them beckoned me to listen.

One spilled over my hands,
slumped from years of pushing, pulling, fighting.
“Dilated Cardiomyopathy.”
You must have worked very hard to keep yourself alive.
I laid him back down and wondered
if he ever made enough space for himself.

One fit in my fingers and I rubbed the stitches
that should have saved his short life.
“Tetralogy of Fallot.”
You could not have been more than a year old.
I hope your mom and dad know that their baby boy
went on to help others and teach great things.

I remove my gloves and gown,
touched by their lessons and realize
my heart now carries their beat,
and walking home I can’t help but appreciate its
Pumping,
Steady,
Living,
Pulse.

 

……………………………………………..

 

Tata, your prayer beads moved in your hands like quiet thunder,
each click a heartbeat on the monitor.
As if your prayers were keeping the world from falling apart,
stitches holding a wound together.

Your house smelled like spices, like olive oil poured without measuring,
like tea in boiling water.

You used to sit like the homeland itself, still and steady, the kind of
steady doctor’s chase in a pulse, in a rhythm they can never quite
catch.

Tata, I should have called you.
But I was scared.

Scared to hear your voice weaker than I remembered,
scared to learn that time doesn’t ask for permission
before it takes.

So, I waited, as if delay was mercy.
I told myself tomorrow,
and tomorrow arrived
and you did not.
Now I pour tea anyway.
Two cups, out of habit, out of grief.
The cup across from me sits
like the empty chair at every Palestinian table,
a chair that never stops missing someone.

It sits like an empty chair in a hospital room,
where the bed forgets the body too quickly,
where a family’s hands hover over air
that was warm just minutes ago.

In medicine, we learn to press on chests,
to clamp, to suture, to chart,
but no one teaches you how to hold a hand
in the silence after the beeping stops.

Before I knew the language of medicine,
before I even knew English,
I lived in another set of sounds.

When we met people
we said nihao,
we asked chi le ma?
as if a greeting could be a bowl of rice,
as if care could be that simple.

Now I meet people
and I say,
How are you?
The words are easy.
The weight behind them is not.

Every morning
I wake
and translate.

In the lecture hall
I read faces
like weather.

I wait
for the safe moment
to become visible.

I turn my answer over
again and again
inside my mouth:

Is this a language
they will recognize?
Will my voice sound wrong
before it sounds brave?

My accent arrives first.
My meaning follows behind
carrying its bags.

But I tell myself:
do not shrink.
do not vanish.

If you know, speak.
If you wonder, ask.
like a small light.
Become a person
who takes up space
without apology.

I translate
mispronunciation into practice,
practice into courage,
courage into a voice
that introduces itself
and stays.

Slowly, confidence returns—
not as perfection,
but as permission.

Because I am learning
to listen twice.

Because I have learned
to think twice.

Because I know
the ache
of not being understood.

So I listen harder.
I feel more.
I hold the pause
long enough
for meaning to arrive.

I thought patients
would distrust my English.

Instead they said,
I’m proud of you.

As if they could see
the work under each word,
as if they knew
the cost of being heard.

I carry their trust
like a small light.

I will not be
the quiet international student
sitting at the edge of the
room.

I will stand.
I will present even if my
hands shake.
I will write the report
with my accent in the margins.

No one is born fluent.
No one is born perfect.

But here I am—
speaking, learning,
refusing silence.

I translate.

And in the space
between languages,
I become
someone who can heal.

The pages I read.
Of diagnoses, of physiology, of chemistry.
They hide humanity behind inflammation and a thesaurus.
These pages I read.
Talk of pain, of suffering
But never an indentity
These pages I read.
They left something out.
As I greet the patient in the exam room.
The face of disease smiles.
The pages I read cannot tell me.
Of Sisyphean courage in chronic illness.
Of the atlas weight of a terminal kiss
Each patient with a grin, a mask, to hide the brokenness.
The pages I read cannot tell me
The whole story, because
The face of disease smiles.