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Several years ago, I started medical school with a great deal of optimism and idealism. I think most of us do at the onset. I beheld the esteemed profession with enormous respect and reverence. Doctors can transform social determinants of health. They can hold the fate of lives in their hands. They can bring dead bodies back to life. They can carve cancer out of bodies. They can alleviate pain and suffering. Doctors are noble, selfless and sacrificial. That is who I thought my mentors, colleagues and teachers would bewho I would be. Some of this came from public perception of the physician. Some of this came from the perfection that the medical school application process demanded of applicants given the highly rigorous competition.

As I went through the journey of medical school, I realized the reality that lurks beneath the surface. Medicine is an ancient profession and it subsequently brings with it the ugly scars of ancient traditions, historical injustices, and discrimination. Compounded to this, the power dynamics and hierarchies built into medicine prevent it from responding to changing times as nimbly as other disciplines. I describe some of my run-ins with these scars in this poem.

He looked at you with his earnest undergrad eyesThe ones that were taught to glorify doctorsThe ones who studied orgo for 7 hours todayThe ones that were told the MD was unachievableAnd the same ones that defied this with an edge of cocky and a VR of 15And he asked, whats medical school like?

I stared blankly.

Medical school was like eating cake at midnight on your birthday to your phones silenceit was the first year that your sister didnt callThe first of many, I guess.Having the crows feet and shitty complexion set in even when youre the youngest in your classAsking the man who mocked sexual assault awareness for a reference letterNot being able to tell your dean that the reason you hate rural living is because you were stalked and harassed by a bloody mary of white supremacy and revenge pornStaring at death and sickness, and feeling nothingLaughing along at how Hamilton is sketchy in the office of public health

Being asked what your hobbies are at a 100 hour/week job interview and laughing in the faces of sombre-faced surgeons who were too offended to laugh with you, even uncomfortably.A paramedic asking you why Black people just cant be betterA bunch of disconnected fucks in disconnected cities in the homes of men who narrated Crooked Hillary and asked you to laugh at their Indians dont know English jokes so they could feel less racistWatching your spirit-woman goddess of a mother get sicker without being able to do anythingno matter how much studying & education & tuition dollarswhat an asymptoteTreating racists and sexists and homophobesBecoming a racist and sexist and homophobefor the sake of survivalBeing the pedestal for white men in your professional life now, toowhat else is newLAR is low anterior resection, I whisperedNot being able to explain your identity with all of the words you knowand mind you, you know a lot of words because well, IB English:MD, medical school, doctor. Dr. Doctor.So what does that make you? A nurse? they ask matter-of-factly.

Standing in your colleagues waterfront apartment and feeling like you dont deserve itListening to a doctor tell you how being in the top 1% isnt enough while being blinded by the flash of his BenzThinking you deserve the world because of the phenomenon known as the sacrifices of the 20sGaining 15 lbs on your daily hospital breakfasthospitals arent for health, silly.Never practicing what you preach and always skipping lunchResist changing the system so maybe you didnt have to skip lunchExpecting everyone else to skip lunch because you skipped lunchDemanding more money, because, wellyou skipped lunch goddamit

Medical school is simultaneously too much, too intenseLike every woman within itSo much so that I cant process it all enough to muster up an answerAnd also not nearly enoughNot enough of what I needed and wanted and expectedNot enough of what the public needs and wants and expects.

Medical school is likeWhen I asked him to gag and choke and slap me last nightAnd it felt good.Medical school is likeWhen he left promptly after matting up my belly hair in the middle of the nightAnd left me to finish his wineIn the good company of:my painmy inability to cryDrakes rip-off of Lauryn Hilland my 23rd birthday

Medical school is great, I replied.

So then he asked, would you do it over again?And I answered, when asked to choose between my man and my careerI had chosen my career.Theres your answer.Not just because he had asked the question in the first placeA question I had not asked himAnd nor would anyone elseBecause well, Doctor Mister Him He Deep Voice Big Bicep Penis Between His Legs.

But because the echoes of the U of T kid flashed backIts an abusive relationship.But I will always go back, he had said.

He was not wrong.U of T kids are wrong about many thingsLike eye contactAnd be-ing hu-man.And work-life balanceBut they are never wrong in the genre of philosophical masochism.

And so, I will always go back.

Kali is a South Asian and Canadian poet, resident doctor, feminist and social justice warrior.

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Exploring the Highs & Lows of Medical School Through Poetry - BrownGirlMag