My connection to the SUNY Geneseo English department is somewhat unique in that I was a Biochemistry major at Geneseo. However, I was fortunate to take part in a number of classes with Dr. Beth McCoy over my years there, and I wanted to write this in order to show just how powerful a strong English background can be, even for those of us in the sciences. I am currently finishing up my third year of medical school at SUNY Stony Brook, and I can proudly say that the lessons I learned in my classes with Beth are some of the most relevant to my life today.
I matriculated at Geneseo in 2009, but my interests in literature and writing budded early in high school. Despite wanting to pursue a career in medicine, I found myself most often enjoying my high school English classes. I loved analyzing and drawing life lessons from books like The Great Gatsby and I often wrote for fun. As a result, I was very close to my high school English teacher, who told me I would be a good fit at Geneseo, her own alma mater. She was the one who wrote my letter of recommendation for colleges and it is incredibly fitting that my favorite English professor at Geneseo would go on to write my letter of recommendation for medical schools years later.
Among the first classes I took that Fall were Octavia Butler’s Parables. It focused on a series of sci-fi novels set in a dystopian future. The biggest lesson I learned that semester was the importance of being able to convey our message to the reader. Even the greatest messages are worthless if they’re written badly and difficult to understand. I began to appreciate this when Beth had us critique each other’s first essay drafts. It was humbling to see the responses from my peers and instructors. I didn’t see the flaws in my paper when I initially wrote it, but getting feedback from many second sets of eyes, I realized my shortcomings. I worked hard that semester to get rid of bad habits in my writing, and improve my ability to appropriately transfer my thoughts on paper. I learned to be more clear and concise. To say the most I could with the least amount of words possible, while still successfully conveying my point. Thus, that experience forever changed the way I write and I rely heavily on those skills today.
An ability to write and communicate is crucial in every career and medicine is no exception. I’ve received glowing feedback on my research presentations and essays these past years, which I attribute to the lessons I learned in Beth’s classes. And I’m currently trying to have one of my reflective writing pieces published in our school journal. Even when writing progress notes on patients, I need to be conscious of my writing to make sure doctors will understand my findings and proposed diagnosis upon reading it. Thus, those skills I developed in Geneseo are more relevant than ever.
As an upperclassmen I went on to take Hurricane Stories and African American Migration Narratives. These courses further strengthened my writing skills. They also taught me to identify subtle but crucial connections between vastly different topics. One such assignment from Hurricane Stories required me to relate the events of Hurricane Katrina to The Tempest….without stating the obvious fact that there was a hurricane involved in both. This forced me to look far outside of the box, and see the connections between the two that were not so obvious, but worth finding. This form of thinking is invaluable to me now. It helped me years later when I took on a research project requiring me to link theater to Parkinson’s disease, by showing how theater training exercises could serve as a form of therapy for these patients. There was a visible but subjective benefit from past research, but we wanted to know why that benefit may have occurred.
We wrestled with it for weeks. There were no obvious links, as theater and Parkinson’s disease are worlds apart. However, I thought back to that paper I wrote in Hurricane Stories, and decided to try looking past the obvious. In doing so, I was able to find a plausible and vital link. In fact, one of my main ideas from my Hurricane Stories essay was used as the inspiration for the proposed link in our Parkinson’s disease project.
Last but not least, all of my English courses tied in issues of race and how they relate to major current events. As someone who must develop a sense of propinquity with patients from all socioeconomic, racial, and cultural backgrounds in a short amount of time, this understanding has been crucial.
My English studies at SUNY Geneseo have helped me stand out in medicine. Being able to communicate and work with people is fundamental to this field, and I hope to make writing an even more prominent part of my career in medicine as I grow.