The Healer's Art • 2018 • Issue 2

49The Healer’s Art ◆ 2018

A spring day you arrived.
I stood next to where you lay, by your side.
Polite, but absent, your pain unspoken.
Rest, solitude you request.
A little medicine?

Emerging, heavy fog lifts. Call anyone?
Mist and ambivalence remain.

“A wedding party doc. My only brother. If I get it together, maybe I can go.”
Yeah, maybe.

“My dad’s coming, can I shave?”
Reunion.

I look at your father looking at you looking back at him. Faint hope.
Like a feather he later says, could blow any way.

“I talked to my mom doc, real good. Thanks.”

She calls.
Dead in the bathroom; needles.
Please come to the funeral, doctor; your compassion.

Old to dying, young to death.

I sit with her.
Waves - and of years past - crash hard.

Unmoored from the deceased, the connected fall away. By Your Side
Alone with loss, each. Shapir Rosenberg, M.D.
Spring again; quieter, colder. PGY3, Psychiatry
Bedside then, graveside now.
By your side.

I wrote this on the one-year anniversary of my 25-year-old patient’s heroin overdose death. He died
one day after discharge from the hospital. Estranged from his parents, he reconnected with them
during his inpatient stay. I attended his funeral and one year later was asked by his mother to lead
the graveside service where his stone marker was unveiled. On that March day, I felt as though I was

at my patient’s side one final time.

Dr. Rosenberg, of the UMSOM Department of Psychiatry, runs MedArt Maryland, a campus group
consisting of engaging monthly discussions of selected topics in healthcare, all through the lens of the arts

-- painting, film, poetry, music, sculpture & prose.

50 The Healer’s Art ◆ 2018

Harmony

Rutvij Pandya, MS2

from sketchbook, pen & marker

51The Healer’s Art ◆ 2018

As Long As I Can

Ashley La, MS2

“Everyone transitions into I stare out into the world wondering
medical school differently. What it means to live a good life
This is a song about my Did I do everything right
own personal journey, filled
with allusions to my favorite I look back at the mountains, that
experiences of the past few Used to seem so difficult to climb
years and things that I’ve
learned about myself along But they really weren’t that high
the way.” When every new page looks like a copy of the last
And you have your dreams but life moves too fast
Scan this QR code or visit the link I won’t let the fears of tomorrow hold me back today
below to listen to Ashley perform! Won’t walk the same old beaten road, I’ll go my own way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rERbMJSvn7g I’ll be spontaneous, won’t ever quit, there’s no chance I wanna miss
And with a pen in hand I’ll write my story as long as I can

I’ve got that one way ticket see the
Sights pass by like I never did before
Sometimes a pill won’t make the cure

For a while I kept the same tune
Was too afraid to play the wrong beats

But they’re part of my masterpiece
When every new page looks like a copy of the last

Don’t leave your dreams hanging in the past
I won’t let the fears of tomorrow hold me back today
Won’t walk the same old beaten road, I’ll go my own way
I’ll be spontaneous, won’t ever quit, there’s no chance I wanna miss
And with a pen in hand I’ll write my story as long as I can
When your strides get short and you feel like you’ve given all you got

Think back on the time you learned how to walk
I won’t let the fears of tomorrow hold me back today
Won’t walk the same old beaten road, I’ll go my own way
I’ll be spontaneous, won’t ever quit, there’s no chance I wanna miss
And with a pen in hand I’ll write my story as long as I can

52 The Healer’s Art ◆ 2018

Acknowledgements

Our second issue would not have been made possible
without the generous support from the following donor:

The Medical Alumni Association
of the University of Maryland

We would also like to thank all of our contributors and supporters

The Healer’s Art

is designed & produced by medical students at the
University of Maryland School of Medicine

tHhEeALERth’Se

artHEALER’SINAUGURAL ISSUE
2017
ISSUE 2
art2018