“This short personal cartoon strip depicts when I was hospitalized for three weeks right after The Match. It was a very tumultuous period in my life, resulting in having to delay the start of residency for a year. Due to variable response to treatment, I was unable to predict my trajectory and thus unable to imagine even my close future—the big picture, as we like to say in the hospital. To make matters worse, it was right after The Match; I would see all these people, including my friends already in training, pass by, buzzing with vitality and energy. All I wanted was normalcy and certainty. I desperately wanted to be on the other side of the bed. Three years later, I have grown into a tired resident who jumps and sighs as the pager goes off. This cartoon serves as a small reminder for me about what it was like to be on the other side, what it was like to live in the hospital not as a “resident” but as a patient.”
Featured in the Internal Medicine Healing Arts Journal 2024