Hello everyone! My name is Shreedyuti Sen. I am a first-year undergraduate student at Sophie Davis. Welcome to my FIQWS portfolio, where I will share my journey of learning more about the importance of language and diverse narratives in medicine.
The Freshman Inquiry Writing Seminar at The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education teaches us, the future generation of leaders in medicine, the importance of hearing, embracing, and understanding the complex and unique narratives in medicine.
Throughout the semester, I have dabbled in research and close reading of pieces of literature that explored themes with heavy implications in medicine––metaphors, perceptions of illness, and more. We were asked to read and analyze compelling pieces, such as Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, Eula Biss’ Pain Scale, and Rita Charon’s Principles and Practices of Narrative Medicine, all of which served as a basis for introducing us to the concept of Narrative Medicine and its implications in our future careers as physicians. We also read a variety of forms of literature, such as Julio Anta’s “Between Two Worlds” comic and Rafael Campo’s sonnets, “Ten Patients and Another” (my favorite work from this semester!) to expose us to various forms of writing and how to analyze them.
Our first major project was the Outsider Narrative, where we were challenged to reflect on a moment or period in our life where we felt like, made someone else feel like, or witnessed someone being treated as an “outsider.” I come from a rich Indian cultural background; my family moved to the USA from India but kept their roots with them, and quickly replanted them into the soil of their new life. As a product of that family, I have grown up constantly around traditional ideas that seem unfathomable to many of my peers around me, even if they come from similar backgrounds. In this paper, I focused on a tradition in my family, something I’ve dubbed “The Golden Tradition,” where every year for my birthday, my mother buys me a set of gold with the intention that I will be able to wear each one at some point during my wedding, a form of long-term investment on my mother’s end. I dive into a specific moment from a few weeks before my 16th birthday and discuss my feelings surrounding marriage and what it means to me and my family. Although a bit vulnerable, I truly enjoyed writing this piece. It was a great change of pace from your average 5 paragraph, formal essay. I was able to push the boundaries of my comfort and create a piece that I was, and still am, extremely proud of.
Our second major project was the metaphor essay, in which we were asked to analyze the impact that metaphor use in medicine has on the framing and perception of illness. We used the argument put forth by Susan Sontag in Illness as Metaphor, in which she critiques the use of metaphors in medicine by stating that they form harsh and distorted perceptions of illness that ultimately harm individuals, rather than help them. As much as I agreed with her argument, I wanted to play devil’s advocate with this paper, and decided to use Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World to present the opposing perspective: metaphors can clarify rather intangible experiences of suffering. Together, I created a nuanced piece that showed that, at the end of the day, metaphors are an imperative part of our lives, and thus being conscious of the metaphors we use and how we frame them will help form a great balance between using and not using metaphors.
Our third major project was the critical lens essay, in which we used one of the Narrative Medicine texts and the argument used in it as a lens to analyze and critique another work. I really enjoyed writing this paper because of the freedom we had in choosing the course to analyze through our lens––they could be poems, books, songs, or even movies. For my paper, I used Arthur Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller and his “Chaos Narrative” as a lens to analyze the hit TV series, “BoJack Horseman.” The Chaos Narrative is all about a never-ending cycle of pain and suffering, where there is seemingly no clear start or end, and no way to tell the story of that experience unless it is in hindsight. I used this paper to explore how BoJack’s life went into this vicious cycle through his struggles with mental health and substance abuse. Although at first, the paper was a bit tricky to write, I was able to make a piece that I feel was able to highlight and appreciate parts of the show that not many were able to, and gave me a new perspective on the realities that the show is trying to portray.
Our fourth and final project was the research paper. In this paper, we were asked to discuss a topic we found interesting and how the narrative of that topic has changed over time (or how it has not). This was definitely the most daunting project yet––we had to not only utilize all of the skills we learned from previous essays, but also formulate research on a topic that may be very specific or niche. Inspired by my autistic cousin and his story, I decided to focus on how symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are affected by and related to varying socioeconomic strata in India, and strengthened my understanding of how the circumstances of individuals can affect their experience of illness, better backing the importance of listening to patients’ stories, rather than simply treating their illness.
My writing is not just an art or a form of self-expression, but a piece of me that will live on even after me. Honing my skills on paper will allow me to follow the wise words of Sir William Osler and become a great physician, and to inspire many more generations of physicians to come.
Image illustration by April Burst
