The Anatomy Lab: A letter to my Patient-Donor

A poem Dedicated to Donors and First Year Medical Students

I am told to take a scalpel to your face 
The very last thing left of your identity in this world
I am told to take a scalpel to your face 
Trapped in between moments of guilt and fascination
I do as I am told

What am I doing? 

Continue the dissection 
Use blunt dissection to define the superior border…
Unravel the last thing left of your identity 
Dissect and Dissociate 
You exist no more 

What am I doing? 

Discovering my “doctor” hands
Searching for life in the dead 
Diagnosing the dead to heal the living 
Grey’s anatomy and graying questions 
You teach me with your “patient” hands

What am I doing? 

Forgive me 
For holding your hands without tenderness
Seeing only the tendons that composited the machinery of the human body 
For opening your heart in ignorance of all the love its chambers once held 
Seeing only the mechanics of breath you were once capable of  
Forgive me 

What am I doing?

Thank you
For believing in me before I entered the world of medicine 
For placing yourself in these immature hands
For trusting that one day this uncertain first year medical student
Hovering between guilt and fascination
Trapped between dissociation and tears 
May learn to hold life; gently and tenderly 
Thank you

Click here for the spoken word performance on YouTube.

From the artist: In “The Anatomy Lab”, first year medical students past, present and future have gathered and will gather to experience together the complexity and sacredness of learning medicine.

Mama’s Hair

A poem in honor of my grandmother

Mama’s hair is silver wired strands thinned by old age 
each morning she gently caress her crown
with the lips of a wide-toothed comb
each strand free to fly in the chilly mountain air of Akropong

A grandmother with a household to rule
this queen never played with her beauty or strength
every child knew never to mess with Mama
yet you could just as easily find yourself on her lap
or with your head heavy on her worn-out knees
as she sang stories to the rhythm of the fire

Mama’s words never fell without an ear to hear 
I was always there to catch the fruit of her lips
I will always be here to hear her old age whispers

Mama practices ancient healing 
with hands and herbs
she cares for the babe to the aged
on those knees I laid my head
many babes have been bathed
many scrapes and bruises bound 

Mama’s hair continues to fall like autumn leaves 
and my unanswered questions grow cold as time passes
As I twist and braid my own strands with love,
I remember Mama’s hands caring for each woman in the town
like her own silver-wired strands

With hands and scalpels
I may care for the babe to the aged
many scrapes and bruises I may bind 
I hope to heal like Mama
I hope to love like Mama
all the strands of patients whom I may touch. 

From the artist: “Mama’s Hair” is dedicated to my grandmother, a grounding presence in my childhood. As the first in my family to become a doctor, I am empowered in knowing that my grandmother practiced the work of healing even before I had decided to become a physician.