Reviewing Residency Applications during the Pandemic.

Abstract

Tupelo honey slathers our hands. Gummy,crumb-stuck to remnants of a quarantined breakfast,we slot our plates in the sink and wash up, dryingour hands on blue surgical towels repurposedfrom my hospital. This morning I’ll work withoutPPE: I open the first personal statement while youcollect your math homework, three No. 2 pencils,and half a pink rubber eraser. My brain flits from wantingto make a difference during this pandemic to subtractionin the thousands while people needlessly die then backto your miscalculations and melodramatic anger,self-condemnation, and your furious erasing of the gainsresearchers have made in this strange time to subtraction,smaller numbers at first, ones and tens before hundredsand thousands, yet every life mattered. Your fourth grademind lacks the nuance of these applicants. You areyet unable to hold the ambiguity of life, the limitsin vivo of complex division and the remainders ofan imperfect science. The world outside this kitchenwrestles with what divides us, with mistakes, withstarting anew. As you finish the worksheet, I turnfrom these polished essays to you, your strugglewith fundamentals among crumbs and crumpledsheets of paper in your fist: another day together in this.The author is an intermittent reviewer for Mind to Mind.