Judge’s Choice
CreativeWriting: Student/Resident Category
© Pallavi Kulkarni | MSII
A brown leather La-Z-Boy
Envelops my very being
Creating a feeling
Dissonance they call it
Running down halls
Intubating
Prescribing
Cutting
The ultimate image I painted for myself
The high that filled every fiber
Of my being
Simply fantasizing
No longer appears
Immunity has developed
Limiting the euphoria
Saving it for actually doing
Instead I sit silently
With tingling fingertips
Impatiently hoping
My time will come
Judge’s Comments:
This poem begins with an effective use of the double entendre—are the “blues” referred to in the title a mood or the set of scrubs every student wears as part of the learning experience? While this poem does not rely on a rhyme scheme, it delivers a message by immersing the reader in a number of sensory experiences, from the enveloping chair to “tingling fingertips.” The yearning to be immersed in the hands-on parts of patient care that drives students through the academic grind of the pre-clinical years is clear throughout.