Our Year of Living Dangerously | Newton

Getting Back to ‘Normal’ 

By Naomi Newton M20
Newton is an Emory School of Medicine alumna and a medical resident at the University of Miami.

I’m on the cusp
of something so important,
yet I’m relegated to the sidelines.
Medical students were banned from hospital rotations,
although the school held out until the very end.
Students are like dutiful postal workers:
for “neither snow, nor rain, nor heat,
nor gloom of night stays these couriers
from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
We always show up to the hospital—
that is, until they run out of PPE
and remember that we’re non-essential workers
who are always in the way
yet trying ever so hard to be useful.

I know it’s not about me,
and I’m all too happy to surrender a mask
to a clinician or staff member
who needs it to do their hero’s work.
I don’t care about missed Match Days and
doctoral hooding ceremonies—
How could I, when so many are suffering?
In fact, I’m proud
of the ways that my classmates have banded together
to do our duty remotely
and provide hope and relief to our wearied leaders.
But a small part of me—
the part that can’t wait to shove my short, white coat
into the back of my closet
and embrace the title of “Emergency Room Doctor”
in early June—
wishes that I, too, could answer the call to arms
and join my colleagues in this worldwide virologic battle.

 At the moment,
I feel useless and far-removed—
as I Zoom into classes
and scroll through viewing options on Netflix.
Totally isolated
from the war zone 
that’s not five miles from my apartment.