Done and done!

When I was ten years old, I did a report for school on what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had to research the profession and come in dressed for the role. So did I grab a toy stethoscope and white jacket and tell my fellow fourth-graders about my plans to study the inner workings of the human body? Not even close. I carefully donned my favorite outfit (so as to be both comfortable and chic) and described my future as a writer. Perhaps that is why, two days after taking my last final exam of my first year of medical school, I found myself in Iowa City for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

I spent this past weekend in Iowa to participate in a workshop entitled "Writing Out Loud," which focused on techniques to make prose writing sing. I hoped it would help me dive back into writing as I begin work on my MD with Recognition project and sharpen my rusty skills.

The entire experience was incredible. I spent a total of eight hours (split up into two-hour sessions) in the workshop, where I learned techniques to develop the style of my writing and exercises to help get my thoughts on the page and to play around with phrasing. The workshop was small; three other women participated, each of whom brought a different background and writing goals. We each shared a piece of our work and then listened to the others and the instructor describe their experiences reading the work and the images and emotions it evoked in them.

During my free time, I explored the adorable downtown portion of Iowa City. It had an unmistakable college-town feel, with numerous delicious eateries, a variety of boutiques, at least four bookstores, and a touch of a hippie vibe. My hotel was situated right on the Iowa River; the immaculate buildings of the university sat two blocks uphill, beyond which sprawled the cultural section of the city. Much to my liking, it was incredibly clean, safe, and walkable.

It may seem strange that I am focusing more on a writing workshop than on finishing my first year of medical school. In truth, the end of the first semester of school felt far more climactic than the end of the year. The question of "Can I actually do this?" hovered throughout the fall, and the emphatic "Yes!" at the culmination brought with it a visceral exhilaration. Having proven to myself that I deserved my spot in the class, I spent the second semester pushing myself to do as well as possible in challenging classes, and by the end I simply felt exhausted and eager to reacquaint myself with the other topics and areas of life that have been gathering dust.

I was actually quite nervous about coming to Iowa. The University of Iowa has an incredibly strong and well-known writing program, and, while I desperately wanted to pursue some formal instruction in writing, I grappled with whether or not I was a good enough writer to even think of doing such a thing. (Luckily, the summer festival only requires enthusiasm and a credit card; no harrowing application process was involved!) As soon as I stepped into the lecture hall for orientation on the first day, however, I felt incredibly calm and completely at home, and knew that I belonged in this setting.

I love medicine, and I am excited to make it my life's work, but I also love to write. Here, too, is a difference between my first and second semesters: during the former, I quashed all other thoughts and interests because I was terrified that if I let my focus stray from science, I would be unable succeed - or even survive - academically. This spring, however, I began to rearrange my mind a bit and allowed some space for other things, realizing that instead of detracting from my medical studies, they can actually augment them. And so, I can finally shed the notion that my two goals are mutually exclusive and embrace both of them: I want to be a doctor. I also want to be a writer.

As I walked to my Sunday morning workshop, so thrilled to be immersed studying the stringing together of carefully selected words and to be in the company of others who love it as much as I do, I caught sight of my reflection in a row of windows and a thought popped into my head: I have become who I wanted to be.