Chapter 1: College
As he walks into Townsend Harris Hall, within the campus of the City College of New York, Arish Amin, a first-year undergraduate student within the Sophie Davis Biomedical Education program, heads towards the student lounge to “chill out” before his FIQWS 10113 class begins. He just finished his first class of his college journey, World Civilizations 10200. He was beyond bored, as the class itself was not intriguing at all and did not challenge him in any way. His next class was something he dreaded more: writing. Arish had grown to enjoy the concept of writing as he progressed farther into his career. But the only times he enjoyed writing were when he wanted to. In other words, if it was his own creative work that he was writing about, or if he was writing about something he liked in particular. But going into this class, he was thinking it was like any other high school writing class. He had taken AP English Language and Composition, and he assumed it would be like that. But he was wrong.
As he walks into the classroom, he sits in the back, as he’s nervous about what is to come. As the class begins, the professor begins introductions and encapsulates the classroom in a very casual and calm aura. It was very soothing, as the class didn’t feel like a normal class, but rather something a lot more open-ended. As we attended a couple more classes, Arish started to feel like the class was going to be a lot more fun than it really was for him.
Chapter 2: Outsider Narrative
The first real assignment Arish was tasked at completing in FIQWS 10113 was called an Outsider Narrative. According to Professor Moran, we had to write a story about an “outsider.” Initially, Arish could not think of anything to write. “Was I ever an outsider?” he thought. He thought he fit in most of the time, but then he thought about his move from Canada to New York. He moved into Flushing, a primarily East Asian neighborhood. He felt like an outsider there. He was not East Asian, but South Asian. And while they were from the same continent, they were certainly very dissimilar. They spoke a different language, ate different food, they wore different clothes. Arish was an outsider, and he wrote about that.
It was a reflective experience for him, as he connected his role in being an outsider into conformity. This assignment brought out some feelings that he had related to conforming to others and the attempt at joining the crowd, whereas the real fun is being unique. Overall, this assignment not only allowed for Arish to have fun with the creative writing assignment, but rather gave him a realization through it, teaching him something he will never forget.
Chapter 3: Metaphor
The next big assignment included the Metaphor Essay. In this paper, Arish was tasked with connecting a metaphor within the narrative medicine texts to an external metaphor. Another challenging assignment, as Arish has a hard time coming up with ideas for topics.
While in a conversation with his friend, Arish utilized the slang term “OD” within his phrase, referring to an assignment he had to complete. His friend did not know what that meant, so he explained it to her. She gave him the idea of using it for the metaphor assignment, so that is what he did. He compared this to Susan Sontag’s, Illness as a Metaphor text, contrasting the ideas behind connotations to metaphors related to medical terms.
This assignment turned out to be a lot more challenging than the last. This assignment involved complex connections between two ideas, tying the bonds between them to draw connections and conclusions. But writing about this opened Arish’s eyes to the use of language. But this class expanded upon the use of metaphors and its impact on those in the medical field. And as a result, Arish learned more about the power of metaphors and how they may impact patients within his practices once he becomes a physician.
Chapter 4: Critical Lens
Arish began to enjoy his FIQWS class. The concept of creative writing grew on him, as these assignments allowed for him to write about interests and things in general that he enjoyed. This assignment was a lot more open ended in regards to what to write about. Arish had to choose a target text to analyze and view a topic within the target text through a lens text. In this regard, Arish got to choose any sort of media he wanted to talk about. But what to choose?
He remembers that in high school, he had several friends who had body dysmorphia, he wanted to explore it more through this assignment. So for his target text, as it contains the most information regarding body dysmorphia, he utilized the DSM-5. Since he has his topic, he needed a lens text to look at this issue through. He chose Ian Hacking’s, “Kinds of People: Moving Targets,” to connect his ideas of labeling others, “making up people” and the “looping effect,” which is illustrated by body dysmorphia.
In this assignment, Arish learned more about the nature of body dysmorphia through his research, but he also learned about how illnesses can be seen in a multitude of perspectives, and seeing the issue through Ian Hacking’s lens allows for one of those perspectives to be explained and shown to others. And as a consequence, Arish has fun researching about something while also learning more about an illness he finds interesting and learns more about how perspectives matter very much within the realm of medicine.
Chapter 5: Research Project
The research project was the last major assignment for the class. Arish had to conduct a meta-analysis of any project they’d like, but had to utilize at least one narrative medicine source within their paper, as to connect their research to something within narrative medicine. Arish wanted to do something, once again, with the DSM-5. After his AP Psychology class in high school, Arish was incredibly intrigued regarding psychology and specifically clinical psychology, and wanted to explore that interest within this very open-ended assignment.
Through his research and his findings, he overall learned more about anxiety disorders, understanding where they come from, how they are treated, the nature of the disorders, etc. As a consequence, he gained more knowledge within the parameters of medicine. But also more about perceptions in medicine, which he started to learn was a common theme within this class. Arish really appreciated this research paper, not just about what he learned, but the fact that it made him love writing more than he did before. And he loved that.
Chapter 6: The End
Arish never had a class like his narrative medicine writing section. The nature of the class was nothing similar to anything he had before. It was creative, open-ended, fun. It expanded his mind, as he was challenged to create connecting ideas and concepts, learning more about the power of rhetoric through metaphors, learning about the ideas of perception and how they shape our world, both outside and inside medicine. Arish enjoyed writing a lot because of it. And he is grateful for taking this class, writing, learning, and enjoying the process.
