© Caroline Eisele, MSI

As medical students, we learn to document patient encounters with the formula of the SOAP note. In this community-authored poem by anonymous members of the student body, we take the formula to the next level, applying it to our daily lives with both sincerity and humor.
Subjective: Medical student feeling stressed out and overworked. Parallel feelings of fear and hope. Confusion.
Objective: Physically fine. Well developed, well nourished. Mascne noted on lower face. BP elevated.
Assessment: Stressed medical student training in the middle of a pandemic without enough training to help.
Plan: Deep breath. Pass M2 year. Don’t get COVID-19. Get the vaccine and fight to not let 2020 happen again.

Subjective: Med school
Objective: Med school
Assessment: Exams
Plan: Meet Expectations

Subjective: Patient presents with CC of blurry vision.
Objective: Patient’s vision normal on exam.
Assessment: Patient presents with blurry vision, which miraculously improved upon rubbing glasses with cloth.
Plan: Encourage patient to clean glasses.

Subjective: “Patient feels like spaghetti.”
Objective: Skin white, slightly moist. Has no other body parts.
Assessment: Patient is indeed spaghetti.
Plan: Patient counseled on decision between vodka sauce and marinara.

Subjective: Medical Professionalism
Objective: Racism and Health Disparities in Medicine
Assessment: Stigma, Discrimination, and Health Disparities Research
Plan: Advocacy and Awareness-Raising

Subjective: I feel lonely.
Objective: The room is cold and quiet; the screen is cold and glaring.
Assessment: A person desiring company.
Plan: Say hi to the janitor.

Subjective: Reggie is an 11-month-old male canine who presents this morning in his bed groggily staring at me.
Objective: Generally tired appearing, yet with urgency in his eyes, heart rate normal, bladder full.
Assessment: All signs point to Reggie needing his morning walk.
Plan: Drag myself out of bed, put Reggie in his harness, attach his leash, go outside.

© Corinne Laity, Patient

I admit that I am guilty
And maybe so are you
I too often wear these “glasses”
And they sure distort my view

Often it’s the captured moments
That I look so far into
And I wonder to myself
Why can’t I be more like you?

I wonder why I can’t keep up
I sure try hard as hell, it’s true
No matter what I do, it seems
I could never compare to you

My “glasses” tell a different story
As I’m sure yours do the same for you
If we all had the same strengths, challenges, and weaknesses
Life would be so boring to walk through

We all have different life plans
And different roadmaps too
They lead us from one place to another
Complete with personal obstacles to work through

I look at where I am today
And then I look at you
Am I not successful enough
It depends in the eyes of who

So with whom am I in competition
Remember this is true
The competition is that of the one
Who stares right back at you?

So perhaps focusing on “their” success
Is something a lot of us do
I need to remind myself
To focus on me and not on you

It’s ok to be where you are
Don’t expect them to understand
Your life is simply different
As different as the prints on the hand

Progress is personal
It’s not a race
Just remember, it’s ok
To simply go at your own pace

Are you ahead of where you were yesterday
If not that’s ok too
Just try again tomorrow
Believe me, I know this much is true

Just put one foot in front of the other
And worry simply about you
Don’t let “anyone” dim your light
Just remove the glasses and simply focus on you

© Kushagra Kumar, MSI

Don’t Shoot for the moon
Armstrong’s footsteps, why bother?
Find your own space rock

© Sejal J. Shah, MD
PGY-1, Department of Surgery

These wounds are deep.
They do not heal with just one sleep.
As painful as the memory of the infliction
more painful is the knowledge of the conviction
that drove the blade dividing layers of skin
to only find that we are all the same within.

The hopes and dreams that inspired us
will only continue to drive us
to mend the tarnished tapestry
that symbolizes the values of our country.
These scars run oh so deep.
We must not forget them as we sleep.

© Dwayne Morris, Office of Medical Education

There’s news on twenty channels
And even if I wait
HBO has a love story on
From 1948
Long before my time
When love seemed good and kind
I’d like to say I see it today
But true love is so hard to find
And everything’s worse at night
The heart aches just that little bit more
No one knows this like a man
Once loved and adored
Dream after dream of her
Awake and she’s not there
Two little children sleeping like
They don’t own a care
Little do they know
They now come from a broken home
And though I teach them we have each other
They can sense this man is so all alone

© Mary Lou Osevala, RN
Quality Systems Improvement

Not happening here, at least we thought
We embrace diversity, number one … on top!
It’s true, our rich team has many colors in check
Is it hypocritical then, of the leaders on deck?

Ignored in the hallway, though on the same team
Dismissive glances to ideas, but then … it’s their theme.
Raised eyebrows, short retorts, snubbed all the same
Black lives are not alone with humiliation and pain.
It’s real, the hierarchy and at times, fed from the top
… You’re not as valuable to me … you’re really not.

Your massive education taught you little of respect
Just remember your place, that’s what you expect
Is it fear of being usurped, self-esteem so brittle?
You can’t reach down to lift up; better to belittle.

The culture is changing for the better at last
Nothing good comes easily and certainly not fast
Image isn’t everything. Kindness doesn’t cost.
But as nurses we know that because we’re trusted
the most.

© Drew Mullins, MSII

Touching thumbs, slowly circling, give rise to focused thought.
Rapid circles bear witness to idle apprehension, providing no release in tension.

Thumb tips tapping wearily, awaiting news impatiently, pausing periodically.
Tracing edge of nail and knuckle, brought about by awkward silence, extended by a sigh.

A playful war of dancing thumbs, battling boredom, the victor, is the only one, having any fun.
A brave inch moved to rest upon, another thumb, eagerly waiting for a response.

© Haorui Sun, BS, MSI

My mother used to call me her little dreamer,
partly because I slept 12 hours a night,
pillow mapping sweet souvenirs on my cheek for oh-so-mortal mornings;
mostly because I said I was going to be a writer-doctor-astronaut-ballerina-lawyer-artist
who spent half the year navigating Italy and the other half frolicking the moon.

But today, when you asked me where I’ll wake up in 10 years,
I stumbled over my words like they were my first pair of soled shoes greeting the ground.

Today, I would choose the road to a home with enough windows to keep my orchids alive and our children abloom,
a kitchen wide enough to slow dance in without clipping the garlic-stained cutting board,
and a bed soft enough to always dip us closer,
even when we’re mad at each other.
I would choose the road to you.

© Judy Schaefer, RN
Member, The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine

We lived on the edge of the forest in those days
A place for imagination and hammocks of bent tree limbs
swinging between Egyptian mummies and Huckleberry Finn

We could practice words such as trellis and ennui
Surgery and medicine, the difference between Saturday and Sunday,
and come to rest on words such as skyscraper and suspension bridge

And more cutting and real than sunshine,
we found arrowheads just below the crumbling farm crust of earth;
touched their fading sharpness and examined their strokes of artistry

We stood up and looked around, as if
the cutter was still there; the sculptor still present as we held artifacts
that could define a future in the forest

© Aria Ghahramani, MSIII

Pupils     ready for the day’s lessons. Eyes wide open. Watching. Waiting.
Equal     parts excited and nervous. Safe here with these books, but
Round     the corner there’s: riots, revolvers … ‘rona. And uptown
Reactive     politicians treat my kids like they did the virus: ignored until it’s a problem to them. But the
Light    shining through their eyes reminds me … these young warriors
Accommodate     to much more. Eyes wide open. Watching. Waiting.