A Note from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the third edition of The Lumen – an art & literary magazine of the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences.

As an initiative of the Medical Humanities Club, The Lumen focuses on bringing the humanities—ranging from history, literature, and the social sciences to art and music—into conversation with our medical education. Thus, The Lumen offers us a central space: to come together, to share, and to create.

As aspiring physicians, we are acutely aware of the privilege we have of treating patients in their most vulnerable moments. We have the honor of helping patients while considering who they are in totality, beyond merely accounting for their symptoms. Looking at the whole picture and instigating positive change requires the acknowledgement that the humanities are not separate from, nor are they simply ancillaries, to medicine. We hope The Lumen can bridge our academic experiences with those more personal, and illuminate the various experiences, challenges, and creative expressions our community has to offer, while reaffirming the value of the arts and humanities in our field.

In medicine and biology, a lumen, as our colleagues very well know, is the innermost part of something. A lumen may house blood or bile, may carry or absorb, may empty and fill. We at the Medical Humanities Club and The Lumen editorial board see the arts and humanities as occupying a central, luminal position in the world of medicine. 

We encourage you to submit your own work to future editions and to check out our website at www.lumenmag.org. Please reach out to us at utcomls.lumen@gmail.com with any feedback or thoughts—we’d love to hear from you!

We are infinitely grateful to our contributors, who took the time to formulate powerful, thought-provoking pieces that lead to quiet introspection, newfound questions, and enriching conversations. We are thankful for the support we’ve received from our mentors, professors, donors, and College—to Dr. Hussain, our editor-in-chief and faculty advisor, to Dr. Matus, for her guidance and dedication to The Lumen and Medical Humanities Club, and to Dean Cooper for his continuous, abundant support.

The Lumen Editorial Board

Harsh Agrawal, MS4

David Chu, MS4

Kanya Dayananth, MS3

Andrew Fausey, MS3

Thu Nguyen, MS2

Harika Vasireddy, MS1