Our story began at Normandy Farms.
We met after a Stop the Bleed simulation and sat in a circle,
And through the crazy spaghetti tower building, faces became friends.
Hours became weeks; team-based small groups became team exams.
Through it all, I am grateful to you all.
Self-reflection ran rampant as we practiced taking patient histories.
Stacked questions are out; “tell me more” is in.
Realizing our tendencies to smile and say “awesome” and “unfortunately”
Have no home in our list of empathetic phrases.
“Thank you for sharing.” We perform our future doctor personas.
Our inside jokes about overproduction or underconsumption forge connections between concepts and cases.
Each mispronunciation of ipilimumab and chondrocyte puts humility in the air.
Echoes of laughter break up the puzzles of pathology and the mysteries of Met rounds.
A consensus that we can’t cure disease by just giving patients an enzyme
Nothing ends small group like connecting the dots between Anki cards
But through our time together, it’s not just the PowerPoint slides or Pacsbin scrolling
It’s sharing our quirks for collagen supplements, warm tea, and Minnesota jargon
It’s going on tangents about AI, Medicare insolvency, and single-cell western blots
It’s ruminating on the healthcare inequities, physician burnout, and epigenetic dysregulation
It’s the change we will make in med-tech firms, government, and research labs
We dream about our future practice and
Envision the patients we care for, the research we pursue, and the lives we strive for.
But embedded inside are hopes of being colleagues together years later.
Our learning team doesn’t end when OASIS stops.
Wood 1, I am forever grateful to know that we are on this journey together.
Emily Sheng is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Art by Jacob Thomas, an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
