In the psychiatric ward
You teach me kanji.
We start with “tree”:
two downward-sloping lines
with branch-like horizontal strokes.
We share a blunt pencil
the nurse has given you.
Your hand shakes as you trace characters:
tree, mouth, exit.
You smile at my attempt to copy you.

Before the diagnosis
you drove a bus in Fukushima City
past the big, blooming sakura
and the sometimes snow-capped mountains.
You hope to return one day.
You miss the flooded rice fields, curving roofs,
the rhythm of the hills and starts and stops.
I think of you when I ride your route,
look for your face in the driver’s mirror.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phoebe Prioleau is a fourth-year MD/MPH student at the Icahn School of Medicine.

A Place for Narrative Medicine within Ophthalmology

Narrative medicine combines medical practice with humanism and art. One fourth-year medical student has co-founded an online publication that shares medical professionals and students reflections after treating patients who have suffered from opthalmological issues—through creative narratives. 
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Vision (1-3): Perception, Self-Awareness, and Fantasy

Vision (1-3) alludes to our naive fascination—an exploration of perception, self-awareness, and fantasy.
read more

Let’s Talk: Superwomen in Medicine

Conferred to medical students in their first year of training, the white coat is a symbol of professionalism that creates a sense of responsibility to become compassionate healers for those who wear it. We invited seven of our future women in medicine to share their personal journeys and thoughts about becoming a superwoman in a white coat. 
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Medical Students Advocate to #ProtectOurPatients

Medical students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) are trained to be informed advocates, activists, and change-makers for their patients and society. A few ISMMS students joined the #ProtectOurPatients movement in Washington, DC to sound a clarion call for change.
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Medical Students Dare to Enter the Tank

To culminate InFocus 7, the Department of Medical Education designed the School's first #MedEdTank, allowing third-year medical students the opportunity to pitch health care process improvements to leaders of the Mount Sinai Health System—in "Shark Tank" fashion.
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Totentanz

Totentanz

Outside the wind tears

still-green leaves from their branches

pulling them up and off 

like a corn shucker

ripping husk from kernels.


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The History of “Histories”

Sue Li always knew she was going to be a writer. “I’ve been sort of writing my whole life,” she says. “Ever since I was a kid, I was always writing short stories in my notebook.” Growing up as an only child who emigrated from China into the United States at the age of four, she often visited the library and could always be found with her head in a book—transporting herself to new worlds almost daily. Her frequent library visits also instilled in her a desire to have her own book on the shelf one day. 
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A [Paint] Nite in with SinaiArts

It’s a strange sight. Medical students not pounding the keys of their laptops. Not tapping on the screens of their iPhones. Not talking about going to an event or pursuing a research opportunity. In fact, not talking at all. Just dipping brushes into bright acrylic paints and with the focus and childlike joy of their younger selves, creating a landscape from the blank canvas in front of them. 
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Vision (1-3): Perception, Self-Awareness, and Fantasy

Vision (1-3) alludes to our naive fascination—an exploration of perception, self-awareness, and fantasy.
read more

Chopin with a Twist

Charles Sanky is more than a medical student—he is a musician. He began his musical start at four years old, playing the piano. Since then, he has furthered his interest in music and has learned multiple instruments including the violin, trumpet, and even the euphonium—which he played during the four years he was a member of Columbia University's Wind Ensemble—among others. 
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Haiku

Reading for pleasure after a drought feels, I imagine, like a marine animal breaching. Nowadays, an essay stands for indulgence; its serif fonts recall a time when my life was consumed by books (or rather, spent in their consumption). I catch glimpses of a world above, where epic meant poetry, meant story, meant the telling of tales til break of dawn, rather than the late-night perusal of electronic medical records in preparation for morning rounds. A haiku was not written finger-to-phone.
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Totentanz

Totentanz

Outside the wind tears

still-green leaves from their branches

pulling them up and off 

like a corn shucker

ripping husk from kernels.


read more