Metaphors & Medicine

Dear 2017, I am overwhelmed by the thought of writing this letter to you. You were a beautiful storm. A very chaotic, beautiful storm. I first greeted you in the buzzing hallways of an Emergency Department, working with one of my favorite physicians of all time. It only took a few minutes for us to meet for you to show me what it meant for people to want to leave you just as quickly as they met you. One suicide attempt after another, they felt close yet so far away. I wished to hold someone's hand and tell them this was just the beginning of something, not the end. You urged me to forget about the "end of 2016" and focus on this new beginning with you. By the time I met you, I had brushed aside the hurt of 2016. I had found balance and learned contentment. I began my journey with you with a newfound trust in Allah, and yet I still had some anxiety about where I would be a few months into our journey. But I was content. I was content. I was content. 2016 had bee...

She was looking up at me with her bead-like deep brown eyes, the rest of her face hidden by the giraffe blanket she refuses to let go of. When I pulled the blanket away from her, she smiled at me, the largest and most beautiful toothless smile I have ever seen. I reached for her my niece, Zaida, and pulled her little chubby 6-month-old self and put her on the floor with her toys around her. I reached my hands toward her, open and facing up, and she reached for them, touching the edges of my hands and my fingers, discovering a small part of the human canvas. She looked up at me through her dark eyelashes and smiled her toothless grin again. In those moments, she steals my mind and makes me think of nothing but her innocent, young, discovering joy. Being home and away from the hectic school life has been bittersweet. I have loved waking up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, cherished sipping my morning coffee with Mama I have cherished the late night chats with Baba as we go ove...

"Resilience," the dean of admissions said to me, her eyes making deep contact with mine, as though she silently understood the lifeline I was desperately in need of. "The best medical students I have known are resilient. They endure the challenges of medical school, the setbacks, the failures, and they remain determined to succeed. They face their weaknesses and do all that they can, reach out to peers, reach out to us, and they do not give up. It is not about their smarts; it is about their resilience." This conversation took place nearly a year ago in the midst of interview season. At the time, I thought of my circumstances and wondered if that made me resilient. There I was undergoing this process for a second time because I was determined to get accepted. I could see the physician I was building myself to be and I just needed to get over this huge hurdle to get closer and closer to that goal. Surely, that was resilience. Surely, that was what she meant. I...

I was laughing. A friend said a joke, and the rest of us laughed. We were at the point where all the little, silly things seemed funnier than they actually were. Studying for hours and thinking about what you need to study takes up a lot more brain power than expected. It puts you in this almost “loopy” state of mind, where a simple joke becomes something much larger and leads to tears flowing down your face. We were still smiling as we found a study room to get comfortable in, plugged in our devices, took our papers, began mentally formulating a plan of what to tackle first. I mindlessly clicked on one of my social media pages and let it load as I took out my highlighters. When I looked down at my phone, time stopped. Home. Conversation became faint background noise. Home. Another headline leaving my head spinning. Another reminder of the life I live that feels so separate from the rest of the world. In situations like this, I feel so separate and so divided all...

The lights were shining into my eyes as I scanned the crowd. To my left and right stood my classmates, my future colleagues, maybe those who would be my friends.  The light remained in my eyes as I tried to find the people who I wanted to see the most, the ones who helped me make it up onto this stage, whose support carried me through each obstacle and barrier that stood between myself and this moment. "Manar Mohammad," the announcer called. I pulled my arms back to make it easier for the physician standing behind me to slip the crisp, white sleeves over my arms. He draped it over my shoulders, straightened the back, and let it go. The white coat slid comfortably onto my upper body and bared its weight onto my shoulders. I felt goosebumps go down my spine as I realized that this weight would change as the years went on. In this moment, it was as light as a feather, allowing me to fly onto cloud 9 and be so completely content  in this moment. "So what do you think...

Sometimes I wish I could see the future. Okay, not sometimes. A lot of times. I wish I could find out how this semester of medical school will end. I wish I could know if my loved ones will live long enough to see my children's children. I wish I could know if a decision I am making now will be one that I come to regret. I wish I could see my future self, to see if she has grown more, or if something has happened that caused her to crumble. Mostly, I want to see if she is fulfilled, if she is content . I want to know if her heart is full of satisfaction, if she made the right choice in her path, the right choice in her friends, and if she loved the right people. I want to know if she is content with herself.  We are currently in our third block of the semester, meaning that after these set of exams, we are free for winter break (two weeks off, yipee!). Somehow, from where I am, I can't really see to that point. Medical school is all about taking life day by day becau...

"My apologies to time for all the world I overlook               each second."    -Wislawa Szymborska, "Under One Small Star" They say silence is louder than words. Imagine the silence of the single voice inside of you that motivates every ounce of your being, pushes you past your limits, reminds you of why  you are where you are. Why .  I should be studying for my upcoming week of exams, but this morning the silence was just so freaking loud . Mind you, when I noticed it, I was at the gym with loud music pounding through my ears over the sounds of my struggling breaths as I sprinted.  So what is this silence I'm talking about?  I found my purpose in the middle of a hospital for the uninsured. I found myself in the absence of things: medical resources, medical professionals, and mostly, the absence of an open heart, unharmed by the damage of a place that did not have a lot of necessities. ...

There's a story behind everything in medicine. In the first few weeks of school, I was walking to the children's hospital connected to my school with a friend as we adventured to the cafeteria in search of additional doses of caffeine to fuel our long biochemistry study session. As we walked, I complained about how challenging this test was going to be, how hard studying was, how challenging this adjustment has been, etc, etc, etc. Meanwhile, we got onto the elevator and joined what seemed like a child and his mother and grandmother. "Where to?" she asked. "Lower level, please, thanks," I said. She nodded and clicked the LL button. She had her hands tenderly around the little boy's shoulders. I resumed speaking to my friend about how worth it I hope it'll be later. The family remained quiet and the elevator stopped, opening its doors to the level that was their stop. As they were leaving, I looked up at the mother, her eyes appeared red and ...

If I could sum up the last 7 weeks of medical school in one thought, it would be that everyone tells you, "You will be fine." And I keep thinking, "How?" How does this terrifying, anxiety-inducing, exciting, way-too-fast paced race ever become fine?  They do seem fine. They seem to have gotten through their first year of medical school fine. They are living. Or I should say everyone appears  to be living.  I wonder if they felt the same way I do. I wonder if they struggled with certain parts of adjusting to this new way of life as much as I have. Would they still be fine? Or is this merely a coping mechanism, a way that their brain hides the suffering they endured in the previous years, or else how would they move on to the next year and the bigger challenges each year brings?  They have to believe  they are fine. And maybe that is what they are trying to get me to believe.  Maybe I will be fine. But right now, I think it's important, ...

Here we are, at the end of my gap year. This is it. It's surreal to read that statement. This morning, I will be headed to my first medical school lecture . As nervous as I am, I am hungry to learn, to feel my mind grow more and more enriched each day. Most importantly, I am ready to take the next step to mold myself into the physician I aspire to be. And an integral part of this process is the school I attend. So for this final chapter, here's a little story: In February 2016, as I was walking across campus in the chilly, fall weather, I received an email notification from the Medical College of Wisconsin. My breath stopped for a second, and I stopped walking suddenly, startling whoever was behind me. My cold fingers opened the email and I read, "Unfortunately, we are unable to consider your application..." January 2016 was when I began to panic about the possibility of a gap year and began to feel my hope sinking. This school was one of the last ones ...

One box, another bag. One pile of clothes and a perfectly hung and wrapped white coat. "Are you sure there isn't else you need?" Mama asked me (for the thousandth time, might I add). "Oh wait! There's another bag of food I don't want you to forget."  There she was, running around to give me more, as it seemed she almost always was. She was always making sure we had what we needed- no, making sure we always had more than we needed.  As I drove away from the house tonight, I saw her standing outside the house, her figure disappearing more and more in the background. She was probably still trying to think of what else I might need that I may have forgot.  As I sit in my quiet apartment room nearly an hour away from her, I realize that what there is one thing I don't have with me at the moment and probably will always  need: her.  So Mama, it's your time. This is for you.  If I was ever looking for a woman who could lift the ...

I was soaring. I was soaring so high that I was almost certain my fingertips could brush the tip of a cloud. Tomorrow your life is going to change. This morning when I woke up I told my family I wanted us to go on a picnic, be outside, sit on the grass, and enjoy each other’s company. That was how I hoped to spend the last day of my summer and the last day of this long-and also short- gap year. So that’s what we did. Tomorrow your life is going to change. My siblings, my mother, and my grandmother piled up into the car and drove to one of our favorite lakeside parks. After we ate, my brother and I raced to the swings like children and tried to beat each other’s heights. My legs moved back and forth and propelled me higher and higher until I felt lightweight and invincible. But in the middle of my bouts of invincibility, the same recurring thought kept eating its way through these happy memories I was carving in my mind: Tomorrow your life is going to change. ...

I am sitting in a coffee shop where I spent many days during undergrad studying, where my best friend and I played 20 questions to continue to find out about our deepest fears and dreams. It is also where I sat at the table that overlooked Lake Michigan as I wrote some of my best medical school application essays, where I renewed my intentions to accomplish my goals with each journal entry scrawled.                 Exactly one week from today is the first day of medical school orientation. Over the next week, I plan to write about the things and people that inspire me, or should I say write posts to them. So please forgive me for the emotions I am about to pour onto your screen. I have been an emotional mess with each passing day over the past week, and I feel it is only going to get worse. So the least I can do allow you to join the ride.           ...

Wake up to parents sitting in front of a rumbling television coffee cups in hand The rumbling is the sound of the footsteps of protesters, their anger rippling through the television across the world. Pour a cup of coffee for myself, check the social media to more rumbling more stomping more crying tear-gas crying and emotions raining mixed into a river down on Holy Ground. Turn off the phone, find breakfast, then find lunch. Wrap the softest scarf in my drawers around my hair. Find a cardio machine to run on, earphones in my ears, with blaring red headlines, "fake news" and real news sparing one another on one screen. Run faster and faster while the headlines grow worse, and the faces grow more orange the hair a faker blond, run until the pain in my legs is worse than the pain of watching headlines. Shower the pain away, watch it circle down the drain, into ground too far from holy. Hear Mama and Tata celebrate victory, watch videos and videos ...

Last week, I fell in love with the city of Minneapolis.                 I fell in love with the latte art in my caramel soy latte. I fell in love with the feel of used books with endless stories in their bounds at a small bookstore. I fell in love with the colors: the colors of the city lights at night, the colors of the graffiti art painting the life of the city on its walls, and most importantly, the color of its people. I fell in love with every ethnicity, with the ten different cultures decorating a single street, the languages on store signs, decorating the city with its calligraphy. I went zip-lining through the mountains and woods of Minnesota, where the drop felt more relaxing than terrifying, and shared laughs with a dear friend and her family.                 My best friend introduced me to the streets of her home, narr...