dear future healer is the culmination of a project i began during my second year of medical school, when i signed up for a poetry class on a whim. while i have been writing since i was small, in journals and on random scraps of paper, i only recently discovered the power of poetry to share bite-sized pieces of my thoughts and experiences on my journey to becoming a healer.
i write for me, but i hope my writing resonates with you, too. i'd love to know what lands, and what doesn't, and why.
thank you for visiting my world of words.
connect, questions, comments
do you write, too? want to write together? i'd love to connect.
oliviadhaliwal@gmail.com
dear future healer,
these words are meant to make you feel. these words are meant to make you uncomfortable. reading may make you upset - with me, you, our country, our sick care system, the world, or all, all at once. i will be glad if these words make you feel, for that is my goal. my hopes and dreams are for you to live out yours.
i believe we all enter this profession with the truest of intentions. but as we all well know by now, good intentions are not enough. i am hardly the first person to realize how broken our system is, but i feel compelled to speak to you, future (or perhaps current) healer: what are your deepest, oldest, purest dreams that were planted years ago and sustained you through your arduous training journey? was it worth it? is it worth it? are you being the healer who is needed in the world today? the world needs us more than ever. our patients need us to feel empowered to act in the ways that they need, the ways we were trained to be able to, un-influenced by the capital interests of corporate medicine.
if these words make you feel, i will be glad. if these words make you act, i will be gladder.
thank you for all that you are and all that you do - and yes, this includes you, surgeon (i really do swear that i appreciate your work, too).
sincerely,
olivia