Jordan Morrison-Nozik, DO is an Internal Medicine resident at the University of Rochester Medical Center, from which he is planning to graduate in June 2024. He attended the State University of New York at Buffalo for his undergraduate degree and the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine for his medical degree. He enjoys hiking, skiing, photography, and relaxing with his cat.
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.
“A lot of the men in my unit started getting sick and never got better. And we just didn’t know. I mean, all I want is to help build a group big enough that we might finally understand more about what’s happening to us.”
Your mom gets tetanus (Tdap) / before you’re born, / Plus COVID and flu / are the norm.
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.
My fingers tense. Frozen not of my own accord. I want to do this, but I can’t. I need to do this, yet the anxiety grips at my mind and throat, stalling what should be an easy decision. As a Black, gay medical student in my fourth year, what I’m about to do has so many repercussions and permutations. So much so that I feel stuck, unable to be decisive when decisiveness is necessary.
by Dr. Ritu Nahar, MD, internal medicine resident physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, written for COVID-19: Inside the Global Epicenter: Personal Accounts from NYC Frontline Healthcare Providers by Krutika Parasar Raulkar, MD Prior to starting the COVID service, I was eating and drinking fear and anxiety — there were wakeless nights and internet research, scrutinizing countless emails taking notes on the latest Jefferson COVID guidelines. I was alternating between feeling like a strong and resilient knight …
Day 50 something? I haven’t been counting. I had to look it up, from the first day we got the hint things were really wrong … March 3, 68 days ago. That was the day all domestic travel to conferences was banned.
I didn’t start out thinking I was going to be a physician. I was going to be an actor. I committed myself to a life of emotional expression, artistic fulfillment and likely poverty, and pursued an undergraduate conservatory degree in theater, which I quickly found is one of the most nebulous forms of education one can obtain.
“You could help us with our diversity efforts. If you came here, you could be a part of building up our diversity program.” Who said I wanted to help with your diversity efforts? Why hasn’t it been built up already?
Fellow Physician Contributing Author
University of California, San Francisco
Chase T.M. Anderson is a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his B.S. and M.S. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.D. from The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. And he completed his residency training in adult psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital.
