Kamini Doobay, Class of 2017, wrote this mix of poetry and prose after joining the treatment team for a 10-year-old boy with cancer.
His parents called.
They called every now and then –
to share new stories, to ask about fundraising events
they could attend, or simply to say thank you again
and again for saving their son.
They often sent fruit baskets, holiday cards and photos
of Joe playing ball, winning awards or just giving us
that innocent smile – one we know so well,
one that barely left his face,
even when he was going through hell.
This afternoon, I went to the Tower building to meet Dr. Cardinale Smith, an oncologist with palliative care training who focuses on lung cancers. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak to members of my class last semester about her experience in dealing with cancer patients, but I wanted to find out more about how she decided on her specialty. We had, what was for me, a very enlightening chat that piqued my interest in oncology. I am looking forward to exploring this more.
The day began with four hours of the new module – physiology. From the very beginning, I was thoroughly enthralled by the material. I was that little child who asked “but whyyy” many times a day and physiology fulfilled that very question.
At 3 pm, a session was held to teach us how to go about preparing an abstract for our summer research project. Not only was it useful for my writing but even more importantly, it had me ruminating on the many different parts of my research projects.
Today I discovered a wonderful aspect of academic medicine – Grand Rounds. We all get the lengthy emails sent every Thursday notifying us of the wide variety of activities Mount Sinai has to offer yet I had never considered the notices about grand rounds to be directed at me, the first year medical student only 1/8th of the way to the MD degree. In last week’s announcement however, the Oncology Grand Rounds on the Role of Autophagy in Lung Cancer caught my eye. Armed with my knowledge from the Molecular Cellular and Genomics course that I just left behind in December, I went to the session held at noon in Seminar Room A in the Hess Center. Granted, there were several instances where I felt I knew nothing but then they would be followed by moments of illumination, where my classroom experience and medicine in the real world aligned. Grand rounds have since become one of my favorite pastimes.
Kamini Doobay, Class of 2017, wrote this mix of poetry and prose after joining the treatment team for a 10-year-old boy with cancer.
