Kay White Drew, who lives in Rockville, Maryland, believes memoir writing can heal. “It’s important to look back on your life and on what you’ve done and be aware of the good you’ve done,” she said. Photo by Hugh Williams

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When Kay White Drew was in her early 20s, a close friend suffered the death of her premature son. That loss drove Drew to a career in neonatology. While attending medical school at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and later completing a pediatric residency at the University of Maryland Hospital, Drew saw many injustices.

Last year Drew, now retired, published her memoir of that time. Titled Stress Test, the book, Drew says, was her way of processing her time in medical school and the internship that followed, from 1973 to 1978.

In Stress Test, Drew recalls the struggles in her personal life, such as the death of her mother, compounded by a time of civil and social unrest that acutely exposed her to the sexism and racism of the era.

When beginning her residency at the University of Maryland Hospital, Drew’s first rotation was in the understaffed neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), an experience she described as “horrible.”

Neonatology was a new field at the time, and Drew described herself and her cohort as “almost unpaid,” she said, just “bodies” needed to care for infants.

“I felt that I had to prove myself,” Drew said. “You have to be very detail-oriented, and I was good at that. The other stuff eventually came…the lifesaving stuff. But it was important to be able to know what was going on and to really keep track of even small details, because they’re small people.”

Drew went on to work at Georgetown University Hospital and served as a neonatologist in hospitals affiliated with Georgetown University Medical Center, Children’s National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Medical Center until her retirement in 2011.

Throughout her life, Drew maintained a passion for writing and kept a journal. Once retired, she finally found time to write and began work on Stress Test, using her notes from the time. It took her 10 years to complete the manuscript.

Drew also writes poems and prose pieces, which have been published in local journals such as The Loch Raven Review, Bay to Ocean Journal and Pen in Hand, among others. Her essay in The Loch Raven Review was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Drew enjoys writing fiction, memoir and poetry because all three forms exercise the mind in different ways.

In particular, doing a “poem-a-day” challenge helped her overcome writer’s block.

“I tend to be very perfectionistic, like, ‘I’m not going to put a word down on the paper until I know it’s the right word,’” she said.

“You can’t do that…You write something, and it doesn’t have to be any good, but you wrote something.”

Changes in the medical field

Drew’s writing paid off. Despite its serious subject matter, her memoir “makes for an uplifting read,” according to the Washington Independent Review of Books. It has tremendous sociopolitical relevance, especially given its discussion of the role of women in healthcare, both as patients and as working professionals.

The most distinct change Drew has noticed in her field over time has been the increase in the number of women. When she was in medical school, women comprised less than one-fifth of her class; that number grew to 33% within five years, she estimates. Today that number is now closer to 60%. Drew hopes to see more women in the “higher echelons” of the medical field in the upcoming years, but said, “there’s still a glass ceiling.”

Stress Test has much to offer readers from all walks of life: young people navigating relationships, older folks who may identify with Drew’s memory of the time and anyone interested in medicine.

Take a look at your life

Drew, who wrote the book during retirement, suggests that fellow retirees embrace their passions, try new things (like writing, for instance) and reflect kindly on their past.

“It’s important to look back on your life and on what you’ve done and be aware of the good you’ve done,” she said.

That can be particularly hard for physicians, she said.

“A lot of physicians are perfectionists, and all they think about — and I’ve done this, too, a lot — all the mistakes they’ve made, or the things that didn’t go right.

“People die, whether you did the right thing or not. I think being able to accept that you did help people, and that even when things went wrong, that doesn’t invalidate the whole enterprise.”

Drew lives in Rockville, Maryland, where she enjoys hiking in Rock Creek Park. However, her true love is Baltimore.

“I have this special place in my heart for Baltimore,” she said. “I went through so much there that it will always have a special place in my heart. I feel attached to it in a way that I don’t to any other place…I did a lot of growing up there, even though I was technically an adult.”