Sophie Bartsich

This month is National Poetry Month, and while you don't have to read a single poem to become a physician, it might benefit us all. Nearly every patient interaction I have is steeped in simile and metaphor — how else to express one's corporeal experience to another?: My chest pain is like an elephant on my chest. It's as if someone is knocking from the inside of my skull. Language is the tool we use to make our experiences known to one another.

I sat on the sidelines, trying to make myself as unobtrusive as possible. As a resident rotating in gynecologic oncology, I had learned quickly where visiting residents belonged in the weekly fellow-driven tumor boards: close enough to listen, far enough to be out of the way. From my seat, I expected to learn guidelines, staging, and treatment algorithms. What I didn’t expect was how much I would learn about how decisions are actually made. The cases moved quickly.

In the 25 years that I have been in the medical world, I have seen the advent of technology, attempted to cling helplessly to tradition, and struggled to resolve the two. I have watched de-identification lead to depersonalization, have noted that writing a prescription would be a lot easier on paper, and have also realized how much of what we used to publish on that same paper was outdated before the ink was even dry.