Voices in Humanism

“I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT”
*Essential Stories: The practice of medicine during the pandemic*
Jessica Muñoz, 4th year medical student, The Ohio State University

This is some advice from fourth year medical student at The Ohio State University, Jessica Muñoz. When times are tough hold onto your dreams tightly. Find a support system via friends or family. Ask for help when you need it. Schedule workouts right onto your calendar and go to the place that gives your courage and strength.

That place for Jessica is home, West Chicago. She went there when she left medical school for a year preceded by too many family members dying. Her school challenges became overwhelming. She was sleep deprived, and feeling so inadequate, and showing the classic signs of “imposter syndrome.”

The pressures of medical school are well known but many times not expressed. In addition to the usual pains students suffer, Jessica had her whole family to consider. She was the first one in her immediate family to finish school. Her mother left school after third grade, her dad after
first. She will be the first doctor in her extended family. She is also writing a book about her life and vocation.

“I started reading Dr. Michele Harper’s book, THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING,” Jessica said, “and I was getting discouraged with my own writing. So I contacted her on her Instagram account.”

THE BEAUTY IN THE BREAKING is a memoir by an E.R. doctor and Jessica’s focus in her studies is Emergency Room work. Surprisingly, Dr. Harper responded and is now a mentor to Jessica.

“I fell in love with it,” Jessica said of Emergency Medicine. “You never know who will walk through the door and with what condition. I am very interested in the social side of medicine and want to know the person’s social history and understand their barriers to healthcare, I ask them important questions that sometimes go unasked due to bias or mistrust. The emergency department sets the tone for the rest of my patient’s care and their health outcomes. For many, this may be their first time seeing a doctor. We need to take advantage of this opportunity to get them the best care. In the ED we see the sickest of the sick, and often the most vulnerable. I see my job as finding ways to heal while keeping the patient and their family comfortable and safe.”

Jessica’s interest in people who are often overlooked connected her with third year medical student at OSU, Sheila Okere, who was starting a chapter of Physicians for Human Rights, and the sub group involving a relatively new field, Correctional Medicine, that is, treating incarcerated patients.

Calls and emails connected Sheila, Jessica and the entire group of 16 medical students to an advisor, Dr. Linda Stone, a former prison clinician, Annette Dominguez, and this writer who does programs at the prison.

The invitation then went to the warden at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, their medical staff, five female inmates, and five released women to join a zoom forum meeting periodically through the year. As this is a pandemic year and all classes and programming ceased at the prison, it was a wildly welcome invitation supported by an extraordinarily forward thinking warden, Teri Baldauf.

The HOUSE CALL first forum, as it is called, proved to be a big success. Then the organizers discussed the book THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING and how it would be a terrific forum book club style discussion. Thirty-five books were purchased for each of the forum participants with money raised on a social platform. Jessica was in communication with the New York Times best selling author, Dr. Harper, invited her, and the author joined the zoom HOUSE CALL forum. Dr. Harper noted on her Instagram page that the discussion was one of the highlights of her year.

Covid has proven to bring out the innovation in all of us out of necessity, but it also brings disappointment. Jessica lamented some of the drawbacks. “I had to give up a cancelled L.A. rotation. It is also wearing to do the residency interviews on zoom. One was six and a half hours long! Also, we may not have graduation in person in May. I have waited so long and worked so hard for that day.”

A plus in the interviews has been Jessica’s involvement with the prison HOUSE CALL group. “Everyone wants to know about this work because it is probably the only forum series of its kind anywhere.”

The gifts the forum have provided Jessica and all of the participants help salve the wounds of a pandemic year. There is a fruitful and enlightening exchange among all of the participants. Jessica’s future E.R. career is being shaped by this as well as her studies and rotations.

She said, “Trust is a big issue with people who are underserved and I see that in my own family. I hope in the forums and in my E.R. work that the people I meet see that I value them for who they are and I do not judge them for any of their past deeds. I want to do what I can to empower them and help our medical field reduce biases and pre-conceived perceptions.”

Jessica’s creed is this: “I always want to remember why I do what I love.”

 

Patricia Wynn Brown, MA
Writer and Performer
Medicine and the Arts Board
Author, Essential Stories: Medicine During COVID-19 and the Lives of Practitioners at the OSU Wexner Medical Center