called early
Jacqueline Chipkin
On March 31st, 2020, 135 of my classmates, along with our friends and family, participated in a virtual graduation ceremony. Just five days prior, our chancellor informed us that Governor Baker had approved the decision to expedite our degrees. We were ushered us through a hastened procedural graduation, qualifying us for temporary medical licenses. As our state braces for a surge in COVID-19 cases, we, wide-eyed and newly minted interns, would be mobilized to prevent our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
This was not the ceremony we imagined or deserved. We were supposed to have pomp and circumstance. We were supposed to eat cake and take pictures with our families. We were supposed to have more time.
Our chancellor assured me and my peers that we are ready. We have fulfilled our training requirements. We are no less prepared now than we would have been in three months on our anticipated July 1st start date of residency. But I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by grief, sadness, and most of all, fear. I planned to begin my career as a doctor after weeks of orientation, supported by providers who were not overworked and hospitals that were not under-resourced. Assuming the responsibility of admitting, diagnosing, prescribing, and discharging was scary enough without the immeasurable burden of COVID-19.
As we did our best to celebrate today- donning cardboard graduation caps and marching across the “stage” in our living rooms- I thought about the four years my classmates and I have navigated together. Beside them, I have endured late nights in the library and early mornings on the wards. I have seen them with their patients, and their endless curiosity, humility, compassion, resilience, and bravery inspire me every day. I know they are ready, and if that’s true, perhaps I am as well.
I can’t promise you that we have all of the answers. But I can promise you that when we are needed, we will try our best in trying times.
Jacqueline Chipkin, MD is a recent UMMS Class of 2020 graduate from Longmeadow, MA. Before medical school, she attended Duke University where she majored in English and Spanish. At UMMS, she participated in the global health pathway, co-developed the narrative medicine elective, and co-founded STEMStart, an after school science enrichment program for underserved middle school girls in Worcester. Her love of stories led her to psychiatry, and she will begin her residency at the University of Washington in July. She looks forward to learning, playing ultimate frisbee, and backpacking throughout this new chapter in Seattle.
