Issue 1 Final Draft 1

Touch
By Kelly Li
M2, Harvard Medical School
A reflection on what it has meant to start this journey in a pandemic.
Fed up by my umpteenth request for permission to inspect a different part of her
body, my first physical exam patient declared to me with some exasperation that
as a doctor, I had already gained the privilege to step into her personal space. This
is not a sentiment I will ever assume, but it stood in stark contrast to what had
become the norm over the course of the past two years.
Only 15 months prior, my graduation was celebrated onscreen instead of onstage.
As my dearest friends moved across the country, I left them with air kisses instead
of tight hugs. For 4 years of misaligned schedules and then travel bans, the
grandparents that raised me were flattened into pixels no larger than my computer
monitor would allow. And from thousands of miles away, I lost friends and
family without a final touch to remember.
Yet now, somehow, I could lean in and listen close to a stranger’s chest. I could
peer deep into my patient’s eyes. Now, my hands could meet theirs to press at their
joints, and learn another pulse that for just a moment, felt closer than my own.
Indeed, there are still many times when I feel like I can’t reach my patients, and
still, my hands often hover, uncertain. But something about my stiff, scratchy
white coat has afforded me the privilege to reach through these new barriers of
isolation, and I will always be challenged to earn it.
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