A Note from the Editors
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Lumen – an art and literary magazine from the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences.
As an initiative of the Medical Humanities Club, The Lumen continues to emphasize the integration of the humanities—spanning literature, history, art, music, and the social sciences—within our medical education. This publication serves as a unique space for our community to gather, reflect, and express the creative and intellectual diversity that complements our professional journeys.
In our role as future physicians, we are entrusted with the profound privilege of caring for individuals during their most vulnerable times. This responsibility invites us to see our patients as more than the sum of their symptoms, to embrace their stories, identities, and lives as integral to their care. In this way, the humanities are far from peripheral; they are essential to understanding the human condition. We hope that The Lumen can serve as a bridge between our clinical and personal experiences, amplifying the voices, challenges, and creativity that exist within our community and reaffirming the significance of the arts in shaping compassionate, well-rounded physicians.
In medical terminology, a lumen is the inner space of a structure, be it a vessel that carries blood or a channel that absorbs nutrients. In a similar sense, we at the Medical Humanities Club and The Lumen editorial board view the humanities as occupying a central, luminal position within the practice of medicine.
We encourage you to contribute to future editions and to explore more of our work on our website, www.lumenmag.org. If you have any feedback or ideas, feel free to reach out to us at utcomls.lumen@gmail.com. We welcome your thoughts and look forward to hearing from you!
Finally, we extend our deepest gratitude to our contributors, whose compelling and thought-provoking submissions inspire introspection, raise important questions, and spark meaningful conversations. We are also incredibly thankful for the unwavering support of our mentors, faculty, donors, and the College. Special thanks go to Dr. Hussain, our editor-in-chief and faculty advisor, for his steadfast guidance, to Dr. Matus for her commitment to both The Lumen and the Medical Humanities Club, and to Dean Ali for his generous support.
The Lumen Editorial Board
Kanya Dayananth, MS4
Andrew Fausey, MS4
Thu Nguyen, MS3
Lena Bercz, MS2
Zainab Lughmani, MS2
Photo by Fatima Khan
