White Coats

White Coats

A white lined paper,
holes and date on the top,
vital signs and temperature, blood pressure
Is my name there?
Do you know who I am?
Am I more to you than a diagnosis,
a number, a list of medications?
Can you look at me, think of me, as
A person? A human being?
More than a file three inches thick?
Who am I to you?
What am I to you?
Do you remember me tonight,
After you have hung your white coat
and signed out on your time sheet?


Do you ever think of me when you are home,
when my parents are pacing the hall,
when my breathing is labored and
my temperature is rising?
Your pager sounds at 3 a.m.
Does it ever occur to you that
It might be me?
But then again,
Who am I to you?

A white lined paper,
holes and date on the top, usually they don't use lined paper?
vital signs and temperature, blood pressure
Is my name there?
Do you know who I am?
Am I more to you than a diagnosis,
a number, a list of medications?
Can you look at me, think of me, as
A person? A human being?
More than a file three inches thick?
Who am I to you?
What am I to you?
Do you remember me tonight,
After you have hung your white coat I lover these last two lines
and signed out on your time sheet?


Do you ever think of me when you are home,
when my parents are pacing the hall,
when my breathing is labored and
my temperature is rising?
Your pager sounds at 3 a.m. Good
Does it ever occur to you that
It might be me? good
But then again, I don't like 'then again' it implies you were thinking differently about something but realized a point for a different case. Does that make sense?
Who am I to you?

There's not too much else I can say, great poem.

I could relate to this!
I was in the hospital for my apendictics and my doctor
was like are you in pain and I said yes and he didn't
even look concerned!! He was like its apendictics
there are far worse off in the hospital,
that is true but still xD
A really good poem, keep writing (:

I love this poem. I like the issues it is addressing and the way you have addressed it. The constant rhetorical questions are good you have not over done them and they still make the reader think. Yes doctor's don't use white lined paper but that doesn't really matter. Altogether i don't really like repetition of ' Who am I to you?' this is quite unnecessary and makes the question, to mean mean less.

The thing about doctor's is after years of cutting up corpses of seeing people die doctor's must harden up or else. The see the worst of people, the worst pain and sorrow. Sometimes keeping a patient refined to a 3 inch file, helps keep them sane.

Wow, I thought this was a really great poem. I can't say I can completely relate to it, but I think it was written so well that I almost felt exactly what you were feeling. The description of the paper and the white coats and the pager at 3 AM was perfect. I read this poem twice because I liked it so much!
Keep writing, this is great