PASS/FAIL

After being confronted with my mother’s mortality, I must continue to be a medical student. I go to clinic and am told I am in the wrong place no matter where I go. My eyes well up over and over when I am instructed to sit right here and wait for the doctor. I am failing to be a good medical student, can’t even find the doctor I’m supposed to spend hours standing behind, staring in warm silence that I’ll never perfect. My mother tried to nurse me but I never drank right. She eventually settled on formula. What if my suckle would have saved her this lump that could be cancer? Why won’t today pass? I am wandering in the “maternal and fetal medicine department,” fragile as the nectarine, who knows once you’re off the tree it’s all bruise from here. I finally cry in front of the right person who wraps me in her arms and sends me home.

Description:

What does a medical student do when she discovers her mother needs a biopsy minutes before starting in a new clinic? This poem answers that question. I spent the day unraveling. Surprising as it may sound, however, this poem has a second, happier discovery at the end: a moment of humanity, when a senior staff member recognized my distress and advocated for me to be given the day to compose myself. I only met this woman once, but I am grateful to her, the way she mothered me on a day I felt utterly lost. Thankfully, my mother's biopsy was negative, so this poem remains a snapshot of panic, rather than the start of a long arduous journey.