Resident Physician Contributing Writer
UT Health Houston
Shveta Abraham is a third year resident in the General Psychiatry Department at UT Health Houston. She went to the University of Houston where she majored in Biology and minored in Medicine and Society and Psychology. Shveta has always been interested in helping fight against the stigma related to mental health through education. One form she has always valued is writing. Through writing various forms, she strives to both express herself and the values and beliefs she holds dear. In her free time not spent writing, she likes to sing karaoke, bake and watch an enormous number of movies.
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all was not well. In a string of unfortunate events that would make Lemony Snicket jealous, my father had come down with the flu, the presents were indefinitely delayed and I found myself – an internal medicine intern – losing the battle to maintain my consciousness in the team workroom. The holiday season, usually my favorite part of the year, was definitely on my naughty list. At least there …
Still lungs. / Silent heart. / Time of death: 2:40.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 protests against systemic racism, efforts toward eradicating the effects of bias and discrimination in medicine has reentered the national consciousness. While this is a good start, it may be better to try to overhaul — or at least make deeper efforts to heal– medicine’s social environment to foster safety and reduce disparately harmful effects of chronic social stress. For this, we can look to the queer community.
Wrinkly face and wonky head; I support your wobbly neck. No matter the emotion, you respond with a cry.
My fire escape, green from decades of wear and tear, bears flecks of paint that barely cling after gusts of wind and sheets of snow and showers of rain. Of course, I’m not sitting on this fire escape, but perched inside my kitchen.
Very early in the morning on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, I stumbled into the emergency department with my hair in a tangled mess and accidentally still wearing my house shoes.
It is very difficult to believe that I am already more than halfway done with residency at this point, and that it is time to figure out what I want to do after these three years are up. Once again, what’s surprising and different to me is the structure for training in the United States: having to apply at the end of year 2 for a fellowship that will start after year 3, seems so early, but I am learning to accept that these are the American ways.
The second week of September was the epitome of emotional whiplash. Monday the 12th, we celebrated our one-year engagement anniversary in the ICU. We had gotten engaged in an apple orchard, so I brought in apple cider and cider donuts. She still wanted to keep fighting and didn’t want her doctors to give up on her. She was on four mcg/min of norepinephrine to keep her blood pressure up.
I had just started my residency in Burlington, Vermont when she started having symptoms again. She was to receive her treatment in Rochester, New York, which meant we were apart most of the year. I had been planning to propose in October, but now all plans were out the window. Despite the fear that swelled inside, I made sure to propose before she started chemo, to show that I would be with her no matter what.
Residency is hard. Anyone who has gone through it can attest to that. While I was getting intimately acquainted with this reality in August, 1.5 months into the first year of my internal medicine residency, my soon-to-be fiancé was diagnosed with cancer.
I did not learn in nursing school what and who is a resident physician. It was briefly mentioned that the attending was in charge with residents below them, and that was the beginning and the end of the discussion on residents. But at the end of my first year as a new nurse on a medical floor, I could recite the names of the internal medicine doctors I spent my days and nights mostly working with — residents. By the time I left that job, I knew just a few of the attendings’ full names.
Hello, come in, / and welcome to peds clinic! / My attention is on you / for the next 20 minutes.
Resident Physician Contributing Author
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Holly Ingram is currently a pediatric resident at Wake Forest SOM in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2016, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in biology with minors in chemistry and anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She obtained her MPH from East Carolina University, and in 2022 graduated from Brody SOM with her MD. In her free time, Holly enjoys playing soccer, visiting waterfalls, and spending time with her daughter and husband.
