Six years ago, Baylor College of Medicine students sought a new outlet for writing or art that did not fit into their medical or research studies.

It was the start of the pandemic years, and a group of students decided to create Omentum, a Baylor student-led literary publication. It has since expanded outreach to the School of Health Professions, as well as UTHealth McGovern Medical School and Rice University.

Ruhi Thapar, editor-in-chief of Omentum, is a fourth-year medical student at Baylor who wrote her first piece when she was a first-year. People who work in healthcare are multi-dimensional, she said, and they must be skillful communicators, in addition to having a mind for science and care.

“Writing is a platform to heal yourself and share your work to heal others,” Thapar said. “Omentum can provide a platform for other people to create and have a space to ‘feel seen.’ If another healthcare worker gets the chance to read Omentum, there’s a lot of relatability.”

The journal accepts multiple art forms, including longform narrative writing and poetry, and visual arts, like photography, drawing or painting. Since Omentum is digital, original musical compositions have been submitted in a video format.

Four volumes have been released since 2020, and now Thapar, Zuena Karim, deputy-editor-in-chief, and the Editorial Board will sort through the 2026 submissions for the fifth volume set to publish in October. The 20-person board is composed of first- through fourth-year medical students, as well as M.D./Ph.D. students, who all bring different perspectives and backgrounds.

“We see art as a beautiful way to self-express. It’s an outlet for things we see that can be hard that we don’t have time to process. We put our own emotions to the back of our heads,” Karim said. “It’s a privilege to read some of the works made with what limited time (healthcare workers) have.”

Faculty are recruited to provide an expert review of all the articles, but students lead the whole endeavor, Thapar said. The publication is designed by the Design Committee to be read like a magazine; the editorial board has plans to produce a fifth volume in print next year.

The Outreach Committee has the task of “reaching out to all corners of the BCM community” in the hopes of finding submissions from students and trainees in the Physician Assistant Program, Orthotics and Prosthetics Program, Genetic Counseling Program or the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

“We’ve tried to get all the other medical schools in Texas, as well as (physical therapy programs) and dental schools. We’re doing a lot of outreach in that regard to make it a comprehensive literary journal with diverse perspectives,” Karim said.

This year’s goal is to expand how and where Omentum is disseminated as the students want more people reading and engaging, Thapar said.

“So many people have different ways of expressing their experiences in medicine,” Thapar said. “It’s nice that the journal captures so many different perspectives from our community.”

Both Thapar and Karim believe the publication serves as a way for healthcare professionals to help process the complex emotions they may feel while working in medicine. And it may also help them serve patients better.

Storytelling is at the core of medicine, Karim said. And though she is still a medical student, she finds that everyone becomes a character in a patient’s story from the moment they walk into the exam room.

“(The patient) comes in and tells a story, and we interpret their stories; we interpret objective values we have to add to that person’s story,” Karim said. “The beautiful side of medicine is to be part of someone’s story – help them through a vulnerable time to get back to the state of health they want to be in.”

Read Omentum Volumes 1-4. For more information, email omentum-editors@bcm.edu.

By Julie Garcia, senior communications associate of the Office of Communications and Community Outreach