Nicholas Gallo, MD UW Hospital, Internal Medicine 2024 Short story “Nick, get out of the car.” “No!” “Nick, you have to get out of the car.” “No. No. No. You can’t make me. I don’t want to go!” My dad crossed his arms, stepped back, and watched as I entangled my body within the…
All posts in Writing
Length of Stay
Stephannie Acha-Morfaw School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Emergency Medicine 2023 Prose The third column glared an angry red. LOS-8:00 She’d already been waiting in the emergency department for 8 hours. The phone rings. “I’m happy to come see him…” I cut him off and say, “see ‘her’?” “Sure, see ‘her’ he…
hallway rendezvous
Andrea Gilmore Bykovskyi School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Emergency Medicine 2023 Poem beneath your despair and my anticipation we are both watching the same silent film: the end of an era. every death is new but the dance familiar you question, I gesture. I have a lot of important words for…
Transplanted (Four-Chambered)
Daniel Rortvedt, OTD, OTR/L Department of Kinesiology, Occupational Therapy 2024 Poem For John What’s built around us is affordance. A state of matter. An ice cube before it’s frozen. A mitral valve blushing into the left ventricle alongside the Allegheny River roiling over at breakneck speed. Can you fathom the distance between somewhere else and here…
Tour of Ancient Sites: Chysauster at Gulval, Near Land’s End
Sharon M. Van Sluijs School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics 2006 Poem (sonnet) Even the frowzy cows I passed on the narrow, muddy path up here think it’s a mystery. Their eyes asked why this high grassy field, so near, is not theirs to graze. They have bellied the fence with…
Seat of darkness
Ryan McAdams, MD School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics 2024 Poem Whispers in the wind led me to lonely land where once stood my family tree its Irish roots drank spirits until a cruel keen blade—sharp with wrath, jealousy and greed— split the trunk in two. Gnarled branches fell, oak and…
No One Told Me I was Dying
Nicholas Gallo, MD UW Hospital, Internal Medicine Short story No one told John he was dying. Before I met John, he had already survived lung cancer twice. He was first diagnosed after a lesion was identified on a screening CT scan. This was treated with partial resection of his right lung. Rehab was challenging,…
Midnight Meal
Hannah Cress School of Medicine and Public Health 2024 Short Story My husband stops outside the building situated adjacent to the private runway on the back side of the county airport, I give him a swift kiss and duck out of the car into the night, the sky foggy and spitting a mist. “Have…
The Juggle
Bryce Lakin School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem The juggle I feel it coming closely The juggle Performing for the stage Tossing problems from one hand to the other Watching them float in an arc Never gone Just not in my hand at the moment I’m not a good juggler I only…
An Incantation for Spring
A.C. Mapes School of Medicine and Public Health 2022 Poem Bloodroot, liverwort, wild ginger serve as a salve, balm, tonic, elixir. Forget Wellbutrin, won’t take Effexor— no chemical’ll solve a long, harsh winter. Sunshine brings a natural cure: watch purple fists of rue-anemone unfurl. Bloodroot, liverwort, wild ginger please be the salve, balm, tonic,…