Attending Physician Guest Writer
Lifespan Health System
Roy Souaid is an internal medicine specialist at Lifespan in Providence, Rhode Island. He completed his residency in 2019 at Brown Alpert Medical School.
Listen to the track “PGY3” by Dr. Roy Souaid and his band “John Lebanon.” The song started in New Orleans during the American College of Physicians National Conference in May 2018 and has been a yearlong project inspired by street buskers, hospital sounds and jazz. It captures the medical resident’s work flow and is set in the medical intensive care unit at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.
At first, my heart pauses: frozen from shock. / But, within a few seconds, I start to take stock.
I recall my father sitting on a small stool in the kitchen / dialing friends and family, one by one, rippling outward
my patient does not have insurance / he asks me to address his concerns
Illness lies hidden in our ways / Influenced by the unconscious gaze.
“One” / It read. / Unassuming in black and white
Scared and frightened, we came in as interns / We had the knowledge, but we needed direction
I seize. / With emotion, not motor.
To help a soul / To heal a wound / To hold a hand / To walk again
Here I am, come and get me! A playful provocation we have all used with much more than literal meaning as a mantra. But going through the rigors, chills and metaphorical bacteremia of medical education, I lost some of the pieces that made me confident to be myself.
Collide, Rip, Shred / Microthrombi ahead / Schistocytes I discover
Like most times on call, the day had been busy. / I’d been running in circles, my head in a tizzy.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Queen's University School of Medicine
Beatrice Preti is a PGY-2 resident in internal medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
