Medical Humanities and Arts

The PLEXUS staff wishes to recognize the hard work and support of the following individuals: Dean Thomas Cesario MD, Ellena Peterson MD, Gayle Pierce, Linda Hill, Carroll Rudy, Dale Fukuda from Printing Division.

 Co-Editors-in-Chief: Sarah Mourra, Boback Ziaeian

 Senior Editors

Audio: Joshua Waltzman

Creative Writing: Sarah Mourra

Layout & Design: Boback Ziaeian

Marketing & Outreach: Manijeh Torki

Visual Arts: Grace Sun

Associate Editors

Audio: Lauren Cheung

Creative Writing: Akiva Kahn

Layout & Design: Mariam Naqvi

Marketing & Outreach: Janet Lim

Visual Arts: Vicky Millay

Selection Editors: Antony Hazel, Pooya Javidan, Jane Lee

Selection Committee: Sarah Blaschko, Rasha Hindiyeh, Meghann Kaiser, Brian McMichael, C. Gail Ryan, Roya Saisan, Lena R. Schultz, Tracy Slone, Randy Wei

Faculty Advisors: Johanna Shapiro, PhD; Lloyd Rucker, MD

Editor's Note

PLEXUS is a student-organized journal of the arts and humanities that showcases creative work by medical students, physicians, faculty, and others in the UC Irvine medical community. Through the universal language of art, the journal aspires to connect those who seek to heal and be healed.

We hope that PLEXUS will always serve as a creative and welcoming space in which we can all reflect and express our various emotional journeys in medicine and in life. Medicine, especially in recent years, may feel like a solitary endeavor. Now, more than ever, we hope PLEXUS provides solace and community to all who contribute to and view its pages.

Identity is the fact of being or knowing what and who we are – an intrinsic property of ourselves and our world that can be challenged, taken for granted, and ultimately shaped by how we choose to live. This year's 24th edition of PLEXUS, Identity, focuses on the experiences and reflections that make us who are. We are moved by forces and convictions that define our individual identities, our motivations in healthcare, and our society. Let us celebrate the triumphs and mourn the losses that carry us to the present and remember the hopes and ambitions we have for the future.

We are incredibly grateful to our amazing community for their support in sustaining PLEXUS. We would like to give special thanks to our faculty advisors Drs. Juliet McMullin, Tan Nguyen, and Frank Meyskens. As well as the Endowed Program in Medical Humanities & Arts and the Department of Family Medicine. This journal would not have been possible without their continuous support and guidance.

We hope you enjoy PLEXUS 2023: Identity.

Kenneth Schmitt (MS4), Celina Yang (GR1), Ashley Hope (MS4)

Editors in Chief

(Front cover) Tower, Clifford Danza, MS1

(Background image) Salt of the Earth. Ashley Hope, MS4

Sponsors: School of Medicine Dean’s Office, Office of Educational Affairs, Office of Admissions

The PLEXUS staff wishes to recognize the hard work and support of the following: Ellena Peterson, PhD; Johanna Shapiro, PhD; Dale Fakuda from Printing Division Inc.

Last Year’s Editors: Rod Mortazavi, Neera Sodhi

Co-editors in Chief: Charitha Reddy, Maheen Hassan

Managing Editor: Mohammad Shaikh

Senior Editors

Audio: Joe Treister

Hospital Beautification: Christina Umber

Creative Writing: Jennifer Aloo, Mohammad Shaikh

Layout & Design: Maheen Hassan

Marketing & Outreach: Madhukar Patel

Visual Arts: Charitha Reddy

Associate Editors

Audio: Matthew Fradkin

Creative Writing: Nupoor Narula

Layout & Design: Chase Warren

Marketing & Outreach: Phillip Ngai

Visual Arts: Phillip Ngai

Selection Editor: Justin Tilan

Staff: Clifford Lau, Alexander Lin, Kirellos Zamary, Virginia Liu

Faculty Advisor: Johanna Shapiro, PhD

UCI School of Medicine (c) 2009 PLEXUS

Published works were contributed by UCI School of Medicine students, physicians, faculty, alumni, and patients.

This year’s Project Hx features stories surrounding relationships - how relationships with our families and loved ones have helped us through medicine, and the trials of those who find entering new relationships difficult given the constraints of medical school. We hope that, by highlighting these stories, readers will appreciate that medicine truly requires a community. As always, we are grateful for those who form our support system - we could not have done this without you. A special thank you to our faculty advisors Dr. Johanna Shapiro and Dr. Tan Nguyen – this journal would not have been possible without their continuous support and guidance. We hope you enjoy this year’s copy of Project Hx: Relationships.

2020 Editors in chief: May Hui (MD/PhD student) and Janani Prasad (MS2)

Dear Readers,

Project Hx is a collection of narratives and photographs with a goal to highlight the rich diversity of the medical community. It is a portraiture of people’s stories and backgrounds, their experiences and adventures in healthcare, and ultimately a way to show a human side behind the oftentimes faceless nature of medicine. We aim to document these stories and perspectives in the form of biographical interviews and portrait photography as a way to provide our audience with daily glimpses into the human lives surrounding medicine. The people interviewed portray only a fraction of the countless number of unique attitudes and ideologies that represent the medical community, but we hope that it can serve as kindling for continued conversation. While reading the stories, please keep in mind that narratives are powerful only when they are genuine. They can be genuine only under the climate of acceptance and open-mindedness. Thus, we hope that each story is received free of judgment and prejudice.This year’s fourth issue is particularly personal, as it explores the thoughts and opinions that medical students and healthcare providers have regarding mental health in medicine, and their own personal journey towards finding strength in this profession. Given the intimate nature of this theme, most of our interviewees opted towards anonymity, but we are grateful that they were willing to step forward to reveal their personal struggles, and put a face - though not in the literal sense - on the true reality of mental health challenges that come with the rigorous journey towards becoming a physician.

Sincerely,

Project Hx Team

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Editor-In-Chiefs: Thalia Nguyen, Soe Thein; Design Editor: May Hui

Project Hx is a collection of narratives and photographs with a goal to highlight the rich diversity of the medical community. It is a portraiture of people’s stories and backgrounds, their experiences and adventures in healthcare, and ultimately a way to show a human side behind the oftentimes faceless nature of medicine. The people interviewed only portray a fraction of the unique attitudes and ideologies that represent the medical community, but we hope that it can serve as kindling for continued conversation. While reading the stories, please keep in mind that narratives are powerful only when they are genuine. They can be genuine only under the climate of acceptance and open-mindedness. Thus, we hope that each story is received free of judgment and prejudice.

Of course, health involves prescriptions and understanding of the biochemistry of the body, but it also It involves emotional and cognitive perspectives, an understanding of cultural identity, and much more. In order to achieve optimal health care, we cannot ignore the benefit that comes from opening our doors and our minds to the story of others - the undocumented, refugees, people of color, differently abled, the LGBT+ community, the list goes on. Minority experiences quite literally color the fabric of U.S. history, and we hope that the 3rd publication of Project Hx will shed light on more personal perspectives of minorities in medicine.

Sincerely,

Project Hx Team

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Editor-In-Chief: Thalia Nguyen;  Design Editors: Patrick Penalosa, Diane Rhee; Photography by Julia Tran

This work would not have been possible without the advice and guidance from Dr. Johanna Shapiro, Dr. Ellena Peterson, Dr. Tan Nguyen and funding from UCI AMSG and UCISOM Office of Admissions.

Ad Anima embarks on its maiden voyage at a unique time in medical history. In the shadow of a global pandemic, medicine welcomes distance in a manner and to a degree that it never has before. From routine healthcare visits conducted with miles between patients to online lectures leaving classrooms empty and beyond, space is an evolving aspect of our work and lives.

We founded Ad Anima because we wanted to explore the spaces we don’t always get to see ourselves. We wanted to give healthcare practitioners and trainees the opportunity to tell the stories that aren’t always told. We wanted to listen, and we weren’t disappointed.

Many more stories than we could put on paper landed before our eyes,

written by dedicated physicians, nurses, medical trainees, and others from across the nation. This volume holds just four of these stories which moved us: we could not be more excited to share them with you.

I could not have anticipated the immense engagement that followed my proposal for Ad Anima just over a year ago. It is the first free-to-access, free-to-publish, nonfiction literary medical journal affiliated with a university. I merely assumed that supply was low because demand was low. But as the dedicated authors, editors, designers, and media contributors for Ad Anima often reminded me, there is something delightful in being wrong, in overlooking a hidden gem only to have your gaze redirected—re-centered—to what was always there.

 All My Best,

Rajeev Dutta

Editor-in-Chief

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the many supporters at the University of California, Irvine who have made Ad Anima a reality, including (but not limited to) Juliet McMullin, Kathleen Powers, Sarah O’Dell, Clifford Danza, Jennifer Tan, Aaron Frank, and Leonora Naser-Saravia, all of whom played a role in the inception of Ad Anima.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF : RAJ DUTTA

University of California Irvine

The authors should be the editorial team, then et. al.,:

Editor-in-Chief - Rajeev Dutta

Lead Designer - Mai-Linh Ton

Managing Editor - Zohal Noori

Managing Editor - Vanessa Le

Editor – Kaveri Curlin

Editor – Jen Yee Lim

Editor – Sarah O'Dell

Editor – Alison Lawrence

Editor – Isabella Buenaventura

Editor – Hassan Shaikh

Editor – S. Herschel Uchitel

Editor – Liz Stringer

Editor – Thuy-Linh Tran

Media Contributor - Janet Nguyen

Media Contributor - Pirooz Fereydouni

The et.al., list of authors continues below:

Kaveri Curlin

Janet Nguyen

Pirooz Fereydouni

Jen Yee Lim

Sarah O'Dell

Alison Lawrence

Isabella Buenaventura

Hassan Shaikh

Herschel Uchitel

Liz Stringer

Thuy-Linh Tran

Irfan Hydari

Maya J. Sorini

Rusty Greene