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Borch
Meet Sarah Jane...
 Class:
2008
Hometown: Mystic, Connecticut
Undergrad: Middlebury College
Major: English
Program: M.D.
I had barely swallowed my first word when my
grandmother declared two prophecies: Sarah was going to be tall,
and she was going to be a doctor. Now, keep in mind that these
divinations were coming from a woman who was almost 4’11” with
the help of a perm, and who claimed to hate doctors after her
appendicitis was misdiagnosed. By the time my grandmother died,
I was the second-shortest kid in the entire class, and
traumatized by the video we had to watch in seventh grade about
the removal of parasitic worms. But, lo and behold, I sprouted
up to a respectable 5’7” in high school, and when I remained
unfazed as a Red Cross blood drive volunteer after a donor
vomited all over me, I realized I had also become less
squeamish. Still, the only solid evidence of my becoming a
future doctor floated sweetly in my mother’s daydreams—wanting
nothing but the best for me, she always fancied the ring of
“Paging Dr. Borch…please report to the ER.” Me? I had too many
interests to narrow them down just yet. The little kid who
fastidiously dissected the vole bones out of regurgitated owl
pellets was the same college kid with dyed-pink hair whose heart
was rapt with the poems of Pablo Neruda. I did not fit my own
stereotype of the typical “pre-med” type: you know, the EMTs
whose cars were equipped with enough lights and sirens to
simulate a slot-machine jackpot at the casino, and the students
whose thick, leather planners had 31 flavors of color-coded
subheadings. These were the kids whose paths were so precise
that they could walk without disturbing any molecules of air
along the way. Even so, my tenacious little grandmother could
somehow foresee the person I am today—a bona fide 5’7”
second-year medical student at UConn.
“I was inspired by people who
helped patients write poetry to cope with the depth
of their illness, and by physicians who recited
poetry while on rounds with their medical
residents.”
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Since I didn’t know any physicians personally,
my influences were often subtle. Other than the obvious
magnetism of Doogie Howser, M.D. (TV’s child prodigy who entered
medical school at age 14), I think my initial guidance was a
byproduct of being an only child. I spent a lot of time around
older people, and a lot of time alone in the backyard: these
were really lessons in listening, patience, observation, and
imagination. I became fascinated by people’s stories and by
nature. So, even though I spent my pre-med-school years studying
English and performing glamorous work like small-town journalism
(you may recognize my name from a stunning feature on broccoli),
I was learning good medicine all along—in every mindful
interaction with another human being, and in every honest
reflection within myself.
During my two years in UConn’s
Post-baccalaureate Program, I attended a conference on poetry
and medicine at Duke. I was inspired by people who helped
patients write poetry to cope with the depth of their illness,
and by physicians who recited poetry while on rounds with their
medical residents. I realized that literature is all about
diving passionately into the meat of being human. It recognizes
all the suffering and all the beauty and all the paradox that
causes light and dark to exist simultaneously. While in medical
school at UConn, I have had the freedom to share a poem during a
class in problem-based learning; to receive wisdom from
participants in a literature and medicine book group, whether
physician, researcher, administrator, nurse, or chaplain; and to
coach female prisoners in using journal-writing as therapy. In
medicine, stories exist as living things. They dance, cry,
laugh, touch, kiss, blush, and scream. I am thankful for all of
those weird, disparate pieces in me that can connect with other
people’s unexpected wrinkles and bumps. Amazing, how human it is
to vibrate at more than one frequency. |
