Ether Arts
Jessica Rutsky
My involvement in the Humanism in Medicine movement at The Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) has been one of the most impactful and important experiences of my four years as a medical student. I have been involved in multiple organizations including dance, writing, literature, and more. In this time I have learned new skills, expanded established interests in the arts, and forged relationships that have weathered strong the sometimes harsh and unforgiving winds of medical training. It has been a pleasure to have the opportunity to develop a senior project as a capstone to my humanism education. My Humanism and Professionalism elective project centers on expanding my role with the Writer’s Group and Ether Arts, the OSUCOM literary journal. The main project of the Humanism Writer’s Group is to produce Ether Arts, a compilation of prose, poetry, and visual arts from medical students and staff at OSUCOM. I have been a section editor for poetry for all of my years here and at various times edited and contributed in other ways to the magazine. As a second year student, I was the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and was able to garner a submission from the daughter of a medical student. This child’s creative work provided a unique perspective that inspired my current senior project. My aim is to expand the pool of submissions for Ether Arts to include the work of medical students from schools throughout the state of Ohio (including Case Western, Wright State, Toledo, and Cincinnati). In this way, we will be able to experience the works of our colleagues who are nearby, undergoing similar trials, but whose perspective and opinions may differ from our own. I very much look forward to these valuable additions to an already priceless collection of art.