Gold Humanism Honor Society
at the University of Minnesota
Narrative Medicine
We are proud to celebrate the beautiful, reflective, and poignant narrative medicine pieces written by our GHHS members while they were medical students. We hope that you enjoy reading these pieces as much as we did.
Have a narrative medicine piece you've published? Let us know at ghhs@umn.edu!
On Becoming a Doctor
Various Authors
This collection marks the first anthology of essays and poems written by the medical students at the University of Minnesota Medical School on their journeys to becoming doctors. Most of the entries were written as part of a required medical school course, “Becoming a Doctor”. Read More
This Is Your Heart
Anna Dovre
"Autumn sunlight flooded Beatrice’s eighth-floor room. On the bedside table, a plate of breakfast potatoes cooled next to a styrofoam cup of ice water. My supervising resident was explaining the cardiac ultrasound to Beatrice, the phrases “fluid volume” and “ejection fraction” floating through the air like motes of dust." Read More
When Words Fail
Marvin So
"My parents never said “I love you” when I was a child. Chalking it up to a different culture or a different love language, I didn’t think much of it until I noticed my friends’ interactions with their parents. Every morning drop-off at school, or delivery of chocolate milk while playing video games seemed to be flourished with those darling, intimate words." Read More
Prayers and Tuna Melts
Zarin Rahman
"“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un,” I whispered under my breath. It was the universal prayer Muslims say when a fellow Muslim passes away, roughly translating to, “To God we belong, and to God we return.” I had said this prayer many times before for loved ones and community members, but that was the first time I had uttered those words for a patient."
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I Could Hear the Tears
Baila Elkin
"Even over the phone, I could hear the tears. I was working with the Minnesota Department of Health making COVID-19 contact-tracing calls as part of a new remote elective. Specifically, I was working on the Hospital and Deceased Queue, calling the loved ones of hospitalized patients acting as a proxy for those who were too sick to talk or had died."
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SIGECAPS, SSRIs, and Silence — Life as a Depressed Med Student
Michael Rose
"Despite the tricks in our practice exam questions, I would always nail ones about depression — if you looked hard enough, it was always hidden somewhere. But despite my finely honed detective skills, I missed the diagnosis in a real patient with obvious symptoms." Read More
When Empathy Matters Most
Baila Elkin
"You hear a lot about empathy in the first 2 years of medical school. You are told about doctors who interrupt patients 7 seconds into a response and you think “not I.” You practice saying “Tell me more,” and try active listening on your friends and family—who are suddenly rather impressed with your listening skills." Read More
Care Package from Afar
Lien Phung
"Within a week of the news about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, many people panicked and bought all the facemasks off the shelf. Over one of our lunch breaks, my colleague in the immunology department told me she recently sent a box of masks to her mother in New York, because the stores there ran out of masks." Read More
Trainees as Agents of Change: Using Your Voice as a Medical Student
Baila Elkin
"I was in the emergency department (ED) when I overheard my preceptor talking about a transgender patient. “Hairiest woman I ever saw!” He laughed. “Apparently it’s a woman, but let me tell you, there’s not much ‘woman’ there.” Every medical student has heard an attending physician say something inappropriate or discriminatory. When that happens, do you say something?" Read More
Tales Out of School
David Power
"I am a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During their third and fourth years, students must complete a four-week clerkship in family medicine. The clerkship includes a “significant-event reflection” project, in which students discuss patient encounters that they’ve found especially meaningful."
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