Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco
Celeste Arden Swain MD is a 4th year OB/GYN resident at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. She attended Bowdoin College for her undergraduate degree and Drexel University College of Medicine for her medical degree. She will be starting a Minimally Invasive Gynecology Fellowship in Portland Oregon this summer. Celeste enjoys trail running, surfing, and spending time outside with her husband.
There was a dark, empty space. Stillness, Where there should have been movement. No rhythm, no dance to take me across the screen.Floating, falling, weightless. Stillness. Silence. The heart. His heart. Still. My heart. Loud and bounding. In the small triage room, silence was my call for help. Scan, search, more gel. Maybe if I keep looking, I will find it. 38 weeks. Labor check. Uncomplicated pregnancy. Contracting painfully for the past few hours. As …
It’s only 7:15 a.m.? I can finish folding my clothes before I have to leave for clinic, I thought to myself. Though the day was young, I had already been quite productive — I started the laundry, made myself breakfast, picked up around my room, and even found time to journal briefly about the day before. Surely I could check one more thing off my to-do list.
A few months have passed since I wrote my last column article, so now it’s time to get back into it. What has happened in the meantime? Well, I had baby #2, which meant I was lucky enough to take seven weeks of maternity leave from residency.
Let’s start with a very brief introduction: Hello! My name is Aline, and I am an international medical graduate (IMG) from Germany. I used to work in Germany in internal medicine, where I have completed four out of five years of training. I would like to share my experiences, thoughts, and later also some of the processes and steps that got me here over the course of this new column.
In my home city of Washington, D.C., citizens have taken the changes brought on by COVID-19 very seriously; social distancing, masking and frequent hand hygiene are now routine. These days, I am startled when I see the bottom half of someone’s face out in public. Our homes have become our sanctuaries. In the hospital, however, much of our work continues unabated. Orders are written, notes are signed, lab work is drawn, imaging is performed. Housestaff are on the front lines with nurses, respiratory therapists and patient care technicians taking care of the sickest patients day-in, day-out.
When I first met Rita, she didn’t make things easy. She fired a barrage of questions at me, punctuating her litany with the dreaded blow to every resident’s ego — “Are you a student?” — before slouching back on her bed, sweat glistening on her gray-streaked temples as though she had run a marathon.
You could feel it in the air, in how the nurses double-checked the orders, how the attendings’ notes bloated in size, and even in how the patients, despite their general lack of knowledge towards the inner workings of the hospital, exuded mild apprehension. It was day one of the academic year, the day that the new interns — my new interns — started.
I elected to pause my training after completion of a transitional year internship to enter active duty service as a United States Air Force flight surgeon. While it is a less-than-traditional pathway, it allowed me to serve a greater mission.
On September 25, we participated in a 15-minute unity break (effectively a walk-out) with over 450 residents and fellows at the University of Washington in protest of UW’s dismal contract proposals during our negotiations. It was led by the University of Washington Housestaff Association (UWHA), one of the few unions of resident doctors in the United States.
My senior and I had been on night float together for a few weeks. That night, the dimmed lights of the hospital corridors spilled into the workroom which was lit only by my computer screen, but that was enough. Despite the few months that I had been there as an intern, I could describe each inch of this room with my eyes closed.
It was 2 a.m. and I was downward-dog in the call room. Earlier during this maternal/child health rotation night shift, I had labored with three other moms in so many different positions that my back felt like it might actually break.
Of all the fulfilling and purposeful vocations to pursue, we’ve ended up trying to find our footing in the vast and ever-changing maze of medicine. Propelled by some combination of privilege, perseverance, and circumstance, we became doctors — many of us with the noble drive to heal and support other humans through the physical and spiritual struggles of life.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Harbor UCLA Medical Center
Saba Malik, MD, MPH is a 3rd year family medicine resident at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. She earned her MD with a distinction in advocacy from Albany Medical College in 2018, prior to which she had completed a masters in public health with a concentration in community health sciences from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She has an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience also from UCLA. She is passionate about health disparities, health justice, holistic and integrative medicine, LGBTQ issues, and improving the health and well being of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
