Medical Humanities and Arts

This year’s Project Hx features stories surrounding relationships - how relationships with our families and loved ones have helped us through medicine, and the trials of those who find entering new relationships difficult given the constraints of medical school. We hope that, by highlighting these stories, readers will appreciate that medicine truly requires a community. As always, we are grateful for those who form our support system - we could not have done this without you. A special thank you to our faculty advisors Dr. Johanna Shapiro and Dr. Tan Nguyen – this journal would not have been possible without their continuous support and guidance. We hope you enjoy this year’s copy of Project Hx: Relationships.

2020 Editors in chief: May Hui (MD/PhD student) and Janani Prasad (MS2)

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

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. The people interviewed only portray a fraction of the 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.

Of course, health involves prescriptions and understanding of the biochemistry of the body, but it also It involves emotional and cognitive perspectives, an understanding of cultural identity, and much more. In order to achieve optimal health care, we cannot ignore the benefit that comes from opening our doors and our minds to the story of others - the undocumented, refugees, people of color, differently abled, the LGBT+ community, the list goes on. Minority experiences quite literally color the fabric of U.S. history, and we hope that the 3rd publication of Project Hx will shed light on more personal perspectives of minorities in medicine.

Sincerely,

Project Hx Team

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Editor-In-Chief: Thalia Nguyen;  Design Editors: Patrick Penalosa, Diane Rhee; Photography by Julia Tran

This work would not have been possible without the advice and guidance from Dr. Johanna Shapiro, Dr. Ellena Peterson, Dr. Tan Nguyen and funding from UCI AMSG and UCISOM Office of Admissions.