From the hip
Posted: May 21, 2010
Turns out second-year KCOM student Todd Brubaker and John Wayne share something in common. Both shoot from the hip.
“I usually do not set out a plotline, or determine who is going to be what,” he says. “I write from the heart, with a little bit of knowledge thrown in there to keep it realistic. I want people to feel what I feel, to see what I see, and to be able to live what I am writing as they read it.”
A student blogger who also maintains a personal blog, Brubaker says the two allow him “to express ideas, criticisms, takes, and all other forms of written expression to whoever wants to read them.” His long-term goal is to be a “doctor-writer,” and he uses his blogs as a test to see “if I have what it takes to achieve such a dream.”
A self-proclaimed poet at heart, Brubaker grew up reading and writing to express emotions, concepts, and ideas through the written word. Writing “helps me to blow off steam, or vent, or express frustration,” he says. “Writing not only allows me to reflect on what I’ve done, but to ponder what I could have done, or will try to perform better, the next time. “
As an engineer-turned-student doctor, he says he brings a non-traditional viewpoint and a more humanistic approach to writing that many medical authors miss.
“We all know that medicine is bloody and dirty at times; we understand that people die, and people are born daily. But what about those times when a physician notices the glint of an infant’s eye, or how a raging drug addict with life-threatening injuries, instead of worrying about him/herself, stares intently at the police officer in the hallway before being wheeled away to the OR?
“I feel that these things are not given the proper amount of time, or due, in medical writing. But I do not want to be just “another medical writer.” I want to be someone who has a life outside of the wards and hospital, who sees the elegance in newfallen leaves, or the dimple of a trout when it takes my dry-fly while fishing. I guess I want to show that doctors are humans, we have hobbies and lives outside of medicine, and we’re not just machines.”
Away
BLIP… BLIP… BLIP… BLIP… BLIP…
Silence gazes across the cavernous cave
Intensity and Majesty set amongst grave concern and Screaming Megadeath
Did nothing to calm the fears.
BLIP… BLIP… BLIP…
Water flowed over outstretched crevices while Angels slowed their wings if only for a second, as another endless love skipped along a path that can never be walked backwards.
Wrinkles deepened
Brows furrowed
And eyes became as marble:
White
Hard
Stoic
BLIP… BLIP…
A soft tap broke the self-imposed silence,
“Room 7”
Quickly she strutted away, hustling down
The end of a sunny hallway
Walking into the light
The light of another time, effortlessly transitioning into
A smile and bright azure eyes
As darkness falls in lockstep behind her.
A quiet seepage of air escaped
Inaudible to all but for the electronic eye
Sitting in the corner
Tracking the ins and outs
Ups and downs
Life and death.