I Seize
I seize. / With emotion, not motor.
Art & Poetry in Medicine
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Originally from the Midwest (think cornfields and windy city), I currently reside in Baltimore (where it’s mostly oysters, Old Bay, and rain) and where I am a third year resident in Neurology at Johns Hopkins. I was a liberal studies major in college at Purdue, where my interests took me from philosophy to physics, and ancient civilizations to the arts. Now as I approach the end of my penultimate year in residency, I often reflect on the long journey that has brought me to where I am, much of which comes from experiences and patients that have influenced me. My interests include travel, hiking, the French language, landscape painting, gardening, and dabbling in the culinary arts, both with cooking and trying new restaurants and eclectic cuisines. I look forward to my final year of training and am excited to be moving out west for my upcoming fellowship in Headache Medicine at the University of Colorado.
Pondering the Human Experience: A Quartet of Poems
To help a soul / To heal a wound / To hold a hand / To walk again
A Story of Artistic Reclamation (2019)
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.
My Allegiance
Collide, Rip, Shred / Microthrombi ahead / Schistocytes I discover
Poodle Blue
Like most times on call, the day had been busy. / I’d been running in circles, my head in a tizzy.
Mastectomy Shadows
I used to joke that after having my twin girls, my breasts no longer belonged to me. / Forget about possession, let’s talk about existence.
Atrophied Dreams
I waited for nine months to meet you. / I know that one night I loved a woman and then you, a blackberry of cells, found your place in her fertile garden and you grew there
What My Parents Think I Do vs. What I Actually Do During Overnight Call
I recorded a time-lapse video of an entire night of in-house overnight call at the hospital. Mom & Dad — I love how you think of me, but this is what residents actually do.
Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician, Installation #4
Neurology resident physician Nita Chen, MD journals through her first year of residency in her graphic medicine column, Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician.
Health Care Is Not a Safe Space: A List of Experiences
The patient who said I was a “round-eye” and thus not a slant-eye / The patient who said in the elevator that he knows Chinese: “ching, chang, chong”
Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician, Installation #3
Neurology resident physician Nita Chen, MD journals through her first year of residency in her graphic medicine column, Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician.
Little Professors
Nine months of sabbatical / I meet them in the airport lobby / of the newborn nursery.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Jefferson Medical College duPont Hospital for Children
Douglas “Mac” Jones is a PGY1 resident in pediatrics at Jefferson Medical College duPont Children’s Hospital. Hailing from Idaho with a stopover in the Midwest, he is passionate about ruffling feathers and radical public health. He finds joy in cooking, writing, and squishing babies. He is still trying to impress his wife.