Any Good Poem
Richard Berlin, MD, shares his poem, “If You Were a Cookie,” featured in the June 2025 issue of Psychiatric Times.
A few years after college graduation as a Chinese major, Berlin’s daughter decided she wanted to become a doctor, like her doctor parents, which meant she had to do all her pre-med requirements, apply to medical school, and interview. Berlin was her interview coach, and they used a publication entitled “A list of the 100 most common medical school interview questions” as a resource. The experience brought back many memories of Berlin’s own interviews. He was fortunate to get a couple of very early acceptances, but continued to interview at other schools to compare the programs. And with acceptances in hand, he loved to answer the question, “So what will you do if you don’t get accepted to medical school?”
This poem is about the most absurd question Berlin and his daughter and rehearsed.
If You Were a Cookie, What Kind Would You Be?
-from a list of the 100 most common medical school interview questions
As my daughter and I rehearse for her interviews,
I assure her no one asked me the cookie question,
though I would have replied with a smile,
“I’d be my Nana Pearl’s butter cookie,”
a two inch shortbread star baked golden brown,
a chocolate kiss in the center. Though my answer
implies love for my grandmother and reverence
for recipes passed down through generations,
a hungry interviewer might have wondered why
I would wish to be squeezed from a stainless steel
press, one standardized star in a baker’s dozen.
Maybe the question is a test to uncover applicants
who crumble under pressure, or a tactic to learn
how much dough the future doctor hopes to earn.
I guess the cookie query makes as much sense
as questions interviewers cooked up for me—
“If you were a ship, where would you sail?”
“What is your favorite ice hockey team?” and
“What will you do if you don’t get into medical school?”
which became my favorite, because by the time
someone asked, I was already cooling on the acceptance rack.
Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.
