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The Tap Divine

By Maddie Jones, M2
(Maddie wrote this creative piece describing her first year Anatomy Lab experience for "The Beat.")

I sprint away from DHW (Daniel Hale Williams lecture hall)
To beat the wretched, jostling, smelly queue.
For space is at a premium, at best
And lab requires I be fully dressed.

New pants with long-sleeved shirt and soiled shoes
For body juices tend to muck and ooze
And soak an errant piece of cloth so quick
Disposing of it is the only trick.

I do implore there's one more thing you try
A headband snug would be a prudent buy.
When errant wisps alight on sticky fat
You're hair will make a stinky, smelly hat.

A gown it's called: but pray don't be confused
For sleeping wear it cannot be excused.
And gloves their shiny purple plastic shell
Imparts a pungent, nasty, acrid smell.

I venture forth to lab and stake my tank,
A vault unlike the kind found in a bank.
Where inside dwells a hidden treasure, yes
But one a robber never would have guessed.

Unfold the doors but do not breathe too deep.
In foul juices bodies stew and steep.
With fat emulsified to yellow goop
One timid whiff could make a strong man stoop.

The task before me is a fearsome feat:
To find the celiac trunk and make it neat.
Parenchyma galore but deep somewhere
Lurk vessels that I must attempt to snare.

I chip away, a David in the works;
Unveiling deeply hidden body quirks.
But where does that elusive vessel lie?
From cold, sharp scalpel it does aptly hide.

What good am I if as a doc anon
When powdered gloves and new pressed scrubs I don
And look upon the chest with skin apart
And probe around but fail to find the heart?

So deeper still I sink my scalpel steel.
Now suddenly! A little rip I feel.
I stick my nose into the gaping chest
And lean my weight upon the metal crest.

But then I feel my body falling fast.
My lab mates, shocked, surround with mouths aghast.
The tank on wheels has made a lurch ahead.
Into the cut does my poor nose embed!

A silence thick and heavy fills the space
As I turn towards the sink to wash my face.
But look! I hear, a lightness in the tone
Some hope spreads through the group, down to the bone.

And there I see just like a blood hound true
My nose has sniffed out gold through all that goo.
Laid bare for all to see, what once was sunk
A gleaming, glorious, gilded celiac trunk!

A tap divine and not a moment late,
To send me, sprawling, towards my special fate.
The trunk exposed so none can disagree
I reign supreme the queen of ‘natomy.

Custom-Tailored White

By Sebastian Lara, M3
(Sebastian wrote this piece for the ICC White Coat Ceremony on July 2, 2010.)

I'm going to take you on a walk and tell you about four people that I met on my way to school one morning. They couldn't be any more different from each other, but they all share one thing in common: they wear coats.

Just a block from my apartment is Hyson's corner. Hyson's coat is a big, puffy, red Chicago Bulls one. If you've walked by his corner more than twice, Hyson will know your name. He is friends with everyone in the neighborhood.

"Hey, Doc? What are we studying today?" he shouts to me as I walk by. "Kidneys," I respond. "Oh, I've got a lesson for you…" he answers as he slaps my hand. "Mine decided to leave for vacation on Wednesday." Just over 40 years old, Hyson is homeless and has lost both of his legs and now both of his kidneys to diabetes complications, so he knows our health care system well. He's a good person to ask for advice about doctoring, especially about communication with other people, for which he has an extraordinary gift, but he's the first person I'm introducing you to today because of that big, red coat. In the winter, sure, most of us wear one as well, so what's the big deal? The difference is that Hyson's life depends on it. When I asked him about it, he said "To do what I do, which requires being outside in one place no matter what the weather, I need my coat."

As I continued my walk to school, I passed by a big window of the fancy clothing store Hermes. I don't actually know the name of the second person, so I'll call her Giselle. There was a photo of a fine-looking model in the display window. She was wearing a fancy orange coat and little else. She wasn't wearing that coat because she needed it like Hyson but because it made a statement. It was bold and it had style.

Closer to campus I saw our distinguished classmate, Marc Lim, crossing the street. He is pursuing some exciting activities outside of school this year but will be back to Feinberg soon enough. And while he has an incredible number of talents, I am going to venture out on a limb and say the one that he is best known for in our class is the homemade deer sausage he brings to small group snacks. See, Marc is a hunter. He wears a dark green camouflage coat when he hunts because it allows him to blend into his surroundings.

After class I headed for home and met Ms. Moore who works for the Chicago Traffic Management Authority and often runs the intersection of Fairbanks and Superior. Her job depends on a coat, and interestingly, for the exact opposite reason as Marc. Her bright yellow coat with reflectors is designed in every way to make her stand out as much as possible.

The point of today is that our white coats are a patchwork of all of these. If we were to go to the tailor shop to put together a white coat, we would combine several. At its most basic, we start with a strip of Marc's green camouflage to blend in. I hope some of you share the experience of walking into the upper floors of our hospital wearing your normal clothes and actually feeling like you are sticking out. After putting on the white coat, I feel like I belong. In this way, it's like the camouflage that makes us feel welcome, allows us to blend into the world of patient care we enter next week.

We then ask the tailor to sew on a bit of the model's orange coat. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's stylish, but undoubtedly, the white coat makes a statement. It makes a strong statement about the training, knowledge, and compassion that we are expected to possess.

To patients though, the side of our coat that they see is the part of Ms. Moore's bright yellow coat. It makes us stand out among the hustle of the hospital. It immediately identifies us as somebody there to help and to care.

Orange to make a statement, green to blend in, yellow to stand out. Throw in some Northwestern purple, and the coat is impressive but it looks a lot like the one we have worn for the past two years.

The reason I believe that our teachers and mentors bring us here, in front of family and friends for a second White Coat ceremony, is that we have added something new: the lining of Hyson's coat, meaning something he depends on for health, life, and livelihood. What makes us both excited and nervous is that starting today when the deer sausage doesn't get as cooked as you thought, and somebody gets sick, or when a car comes around the corner and ignores Ms. Moore's directions and somebody gets hurt, or simply when your kidneys decide to give up early, these same people entrust their lives and livelihoods to a second coat, one that oddly enough isn't on their own shoulders. It's on ours now. Let's make them proud.

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