It’s my first year of grad school. Because of the pandemic, all of our classes have been online, so the first time that I actually met my professors was at an end of quarter breakfast hour put on by a few of my classmates.
The proximity to death was palpable. After several months of learning medicine from the comfort of my home, being in the cardiac ICU transplanted me into another world.
The year 2020 is truly one for the history books. COVID has dominated our lives, prompting people to work remotely from home, schools to switch to virtual learning, and businesses to undergo repeated cycles of closure and reopening.
Noah writhes in his hospital bed. Largely non-verbal and living with severe intellectual disability, he moans repeatedly in pain as his nurse adjusts his morphine. His mother appears on the iPad we’re holding. “Noah, it’s Mommy.
I don’t know when it began, but happened gradually as the first fall quarter unfolded. First, I began by picking up little pieces that people left behind.
Five years ago, I was in my third year of pharmacy school in Singapore studying alone for my year end exams, or rather spending my time scrolling through Facebook and pretending to study.
