Dear Readers,

Project Hx is a collection of narratives and photographs with a goal to highlight the rich diversity of the medical community. It is a portraiture of people’s stories and backgrounds, their experiences and adventures in healthcare, and ultimately a way to show a human side behind the oftentimes faceless nature of medicine. We aim to document these stories and perspectives in the form of biographical interviews and portrait photography as a way to provide our audience with daily glimpses into the human lives surrounding medicine. The people interviewed portray only a fraction of the countless number of unique attitudes and ideologies that represent the medical community, but we hope that it can serve as kindling for continued conversation. While reading the stories, please keep in mind that narratives are powerful only when they are genuine. They can be genuine only under the climate of acceptance and open-mindedness. Thus, we hope that each story is received free of judgment and prejudice.This year’s fourth issue is particularly personal, as it explores the thoughts and opinions that medical students and healthcare providers have regarding mental health in medicine, and their own personal journey towards finding strength in this profession. Given the intimate nature of this theme, most of our interviewees opted towards anonymity, but we are grateful that they were willing to step forward to reveal their personal struggles, and put a face - though not in the literal sense - on the true reality of mental health challenges that come with the rigorous journey towards becoming a physician.

Sincerely,

Project Hx Team

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Editor-In-Chiefs: Thalia Nguyen, Soe Thein; Design Editor: May Hui

Editor's Note

 PLEXUS is a student-organized publication that showcases creative work by medical students, physicians, faculty, and others in the UCI medical community. Through the universal language of art, the journal aspires to connect those who seek to heal and to be healed. We hope that PLEXUS will always be a  creative and welcoming space in which we can all reflect and share our experiences in medicine and in life.

This year, more than ever, we hope that PLEXUS can provide solace to those who contribute to and view its pages. The unprecedented challenges of the last year have brought us incredible hardships and sorrow, but also inspired newfound strength and profound kindness. In this year’s 22nd edition of PLEXUS, we embrace and celebrate all of this as part of the process of Emergence.

In this issue, we highlight the past year as a time of new things coming into being – whether good or bad – and to hold hope for the possibility of change for the better. Emergence is a process of coming to view and bringing things to light as well as the philosophy that greater things may arise which are unexpected and far better than any of the parts we see.

We are incredibly grateful to our amazing community for their support in sustaining PLEXUS. This year we are lucky to have a wonderful team of MS1 associate editors led by Celina Yang: Riya Bansal, Aaron Frank, Kathleen Powers, and Kelsey Roman. We would like to give special thanks to our faculty advisors Dr. Johanna Shapiro, Dr. Tan Nguyen and Dr. Frank Meyskens. This journal would not have been possible

without their continuous support and guidance.

We hope you enjoy PLEXUS 2021: Emergence.

Editors in Chief: Ashley Hope, Kenneth Schmitt  

Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 medical student competition!

Visual: Breaking Wave by Tammy Tran (MS3) Bloom/Plume/Bloom by Qingxing Liang (MS2)

Written: Dragonfly in Amber by Bethlehem Tesfaye (MS1), A Little Soda for Thought by Anna Cardall (MS3)

Performance: Emergence (Darkness) by Alex Richardson (MS3), On My Way remix by Harrison Lam (MS2)

(front cover) Egg By: Sam Vesuna (MS3)