Dear Reader,
Welcome to Issue 12 of Medicine and Meaning, now entering its sixth year of publication. We’re thrilled to share this milestone with you and to introduce some exciting updates to our editorial team. Mr. Eric Moorehead has retired and Dr. Nancy Rusch and Dr. Kalaivani Sivakumar are now Senior Editors for the nonfiction column, joined by Assistant Editor Dr. Sai Nikhila Ghanta. Ms. Logan Whittington has left her position as Assistant Editor for Poetry. The rest of our editorial staff remains unchanged, and as always, we deeply value your feedback and participation.
This issue opens with our Non-Fiction section, which features one essay and three creative nonfiction stories. The essay, entitled “Trust Your Writing Process,” offers insights into writing. The author explores techniques used by renowned writers alongside her own approach, guiding us into the creative process with confidence and curiosity.
The first nonfiction story, “My Summer of Demolition and Renovation: Remodeling Our Bathroom and Learning I Had Cancer in My Face,” is a poignant reflection on the simultaneous upheaval of the author’s home and her diagnosis of a nasal tumor. She draws compelling parallels between physical and medical reconstruction, offering a deeply personal meditation on transformation. In “Sufficient Detachment,” a mother recounts her experience in the emergency room with her son, capturing the emotional turmoil of his condition juxtaposed to the comfort of knowing he is in capable hands. The final nonfiction piece, “All of Us Are Pink Inside,” follows one woman’s journey as a volunteer in medical studies, revealing how she finds meaning amid the unpredictability of research participation.
Our Fiction section features three imaginative stories. In “The Storyteller,” the author invites us to transform personal struggles into stories as a way of transcending them. She draws from the luminous space between sleep and wakefulness, weaving abstract ideas into narrative form. “The Cleaner” follows an attorney who helps families navigate the emotional and material struggles at end of life and thereafter. Faced with two generations battling terminal illness, he evolves in empathy and emotional depth. Finally, “Cure of Immortality” presents an introspective tale of a mythical immortal creature who recounts his experiences from the beginning of time to the end of eternity.
In our 55-Word Story section, we present five compact and powerful narratives. One story captures a woman describing her pain convincingly enough to finally be heard. Another follows a volunteer at a medical outreach clinic in Guatemala, who encounters a hungry dog—and recognizes it as a powerful metaphor for the country’s challenges. A third story features a medical student in awe of the sacredness of science and its gifts to humankind. In another, a man undergoing weekly debridement finds his rhythm. The final story portrays a doctor confronting her own humanity as she delivers bad news to a distraught family.
The Poetry section spans a wide range of themes. Topics include chemotherapy, mortality, the emotional weight of joining “the dead parent club,” academic hierarchy, and more. These short, sharp poems offer wisdom and insight into everyday life and the meaning behind it.
In the History of Medicine section, Tim Nutt continues his exploration of Arkansas’s medical past. This issue focuses on the timely topic of selecting a new chancellor. He highlights the contributions of previous university leaders and the ways in which they have advanced medicine in the state of Arkansas and at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Our Images section features a curated selection of photographs that reflect beauty and humanity within and beyond medicine, including scenes of nature, clinics, fishing, and horses.
We hope you enjoy this issue and encourage you to send us your stories, poems, and other creative work. We also invite you to volunteer as a reader, reviewer, or editor. There is room for everyone here. This is your journal—make it yours by contributing to it. Looking ahead, we dream of expanding our scope to include biographies, reviews of new books in the humanities and arts, and coverage of campus activities that celebrate the intersection of medicine and creativity. If you’d like to help in any of these areas, we’d love to hear from you.
We hope this issue inspires you, provokes thought, and deepens your connection to the intersection of medicine and meaning.
Warmly,
Paulette Mehta, M.D., MPH
Editor-in-Chief
Bryan Clifton – Images Co-Editor
Chris Fettes – Poetry Editor
Sai Nikhila Ghanta – Creative Non-Fiction Assistant Editor
Faiza Khan – Fiction Co-Editor
Humaira Khan – Fiction Co-Editor
Chris Lesher – Web Content Editor
Timothy G. Nutt – History of Medicine Editor
Nancy Rusch – Creative Non-Fiction Editor
Allen Sherman – 55-Word Story Editor
Kalaivani Sivakumar – Creative Non-Fiction Co-Editor
Stephanie Trotter – Images Co-Editor