Artist’s Note:
By no stretch of the imagination, medical school is a staccato series of beginnings. New school, new classmates, new classes, new imposter syndrome, and then suddenly a rapid-fire sprint through internal medicine, family medicine, ob/gyn, pediatrics, emergency medicine, neurology, psychiatry, surgery, and much more to come. Reflecting on every twist and turn while barely anticipating the next hurdle is impossible. Even so, I wanted a place — or project, as is what came to be — where I could capture the soft, silly, naively profound realizations of my early medical training. Thus, from my verbose medical school journal emerged the comic strip presented here, titled “Journal of a Former MS1.” Despite the fact that I am now an MS3 (and very nearly a “sub-I,” which terrifies me) no amount of time or growth will change the fact that at the beginning, I was — as all doctors were — an MS1. I hope this selection of comic strips provides even a pearl of relatability to my classmates and mentors, who have gotten me this far.
8/21/2019
Catherine Yang is an MS3 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
