Dear Readers,
Welcome to the sixth edition of The Lumen – an art & literary magazine of the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences.
Launched as an initiative of the Medical Humanities Club, The Lumen embraces the role of art, history, social sciences, and literature as they pertain to medicine. This publication serves as a unique space for our community to enrich our training through the expression of the arts. As technology and research remain cornerstones of our curriculum, we aim to cultivate an appreciation for the arts and soft sciences and bring them into conversation with our education.
As editors, we are acutely aware of the privilege we have being future physicians. We will see patients seeking healthcare, not only in their times of greatest need, but also in some of the most important moments of their lives. We will bear witness to birth, death, suffering, and recovery alongside our patients. This age-old responsibility not only calls on us to recognize and treat the symptoms of our patients, but also to embrace their stories, identities, hopes, and fears – to see the fullness of their lives as essential to their care. This responsibility emphasizes the importance of the humanities in medicine; they are essential for understanding the human condition.
We hope that The Lumen can serve as a bridge between our academic and more personal experiences, as a platform amplifying voices, illuminating challenges, celebrating the creativity in our community, and reaffirming the significance of the arts in shaping compassionate, well-rounded physicians.
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 Lumen editorial board see the arts and humanities as occupying a central, luminal position in the world of medicine.
Thus, The Lumen offers us a central space: to come together, to share, to discuss, and to create.
We encourage you to contribute to future editions and to explore more of our work on our website, 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!
Finally, we extend our deepest thanks to our exceptional contributors, who spent their precious time creating pieces that intrigue, inspire, and empower. We are grateful for the support we’ve received from mentors, faculty, and the College. We are especially thankful to Dr. Hussain, our editor-in-chief and faculty advisor, for his constant guidance; to Dr. Matus and Dr. Kleshinski for their commitment to the medical humanities; and lastly to Dean Ali for his generous support.
The Lumen Editorial Board
Lena Bercz, MS4
Zainab Lughmani, MS3
Jack Newman, MS3
Solee Cheon, MS3
Meghana Sugoor, MS2
Alsedeaq Hawamdeh, MS2
Back — Left to Right: Jack Newman, Solee Cheon, Alsedeaq Hawamdeh, Meghana Sugoor
Front — Left to Right: Lena Bercz, Dr. S. Amjad Hussain, Zainab Lughmani
