Photo: Nyki M., Creative Commons 3.0

I am sitting in a silent laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine building at Zagazig University in Egypt, where I am in my fifth year of medical school. I am surrounded by glass test tubes, slides, and microscopes, all neatly arranged on the shelves. There is a rigorous procedure for preparing slides and I must follow each step precisely. First, I wash my hands, then I select a clean glass slide from a sterilized case. I choose a pipette from the rack, apply the stain to the slide, and carefully place it under the microscope, moving the lens until the minute features of blood cells become visible. I take a deep breath, then peer through the lens.

Our lecturers constantly remind us that blood is life. Its oxygen level, flow, and the delicate structural balances are all indicators to track when an organism is struggling to survive. We must observe with strict objectivity and read the signs accurately in order to correctly diagnose illnesses or other problems the blood reveals. It is most important that we maintain neutrality, because science, my profession, requires dispassionate evaluation.

Yet as soon as my eyes touch that crimson spot under the microscope, all neutrality vanishes, and a completely different image pops into my head: the blood of Gaza, my home, where my family lives. Blood that seeps into the dust of houses that have been destroyed, spills over asphalt ripped apart by bombs and rockets, and stains pavements outside hospitals deprived of sterile equipment, medicine, and electricity. This blood screams its messages out loud—PAIN! FEAR! INJUSTICE!—so it doesn’t require a microscope. The stillness inside the lab only intensifies the horror I imagine outside.

Sometimes the contrasts are intolerably sharp. Using gloves and masks, I practice infection control in the lab, employing the latest technology as I learn how to keep contamination from destroying my experiments. In the same moments, I am painfully aware of the contamination and deprivation that surrounds my family in Gaza: contaminated water, widespread illness and infection, acute medication shortages, anesthesia-deprived hospitals, and surgeries done with flashlights. I imagine the fear and helplessness of patients and families that laboratory protocol can’t even touch.

My cousin in Gaza describes to me how her baby drowned in an incubator that malfunctioned when an airstrike cut the electricity. Meanwhile I’m studying procedures for resuscitating a patient experiencing oxygen deprivation here in Egypt. I visualize the desperation in Gaza and compare it to the controlled precision of my medical training.

My younger brother sends me pictures of broken windows and wounds covered in homemade bandages, while I sit in a sterile, air-conditioned classroom. As I examine the structure of red blood cells and their roles, blood is spilled in quantities that no chart could ever hold. Microscopic analysis feels surreal compared with the endless bloodshed experienced by my people. The blood of Gaza is not silent like lab results and statistics. It is the grim testimony of children whose names will never be in patient files, of entire families who were instantly erased from clan records, and of bodies being brought to cemeteries rather than operating tables. Blood in a university laboratory is merely material for study and training. But in Gaza, blood is the price of existence. It carries stories, grief, and the weight of survival.

My heart breaks every day I live this paradox. I ask myself the same question over and over: What use is a test tube in this place when the streets of Gaza are overflowing with blood? What I am really navigating in this tightly controlled setting is the uncontrolled everyday reality of my family, so what purpose is there in my studies? I feel caught between the laboratory of science and the laboratory of real life.

The most difficult pill for me to swallow is that even though my training is preparing me to be a doctor who saves lives, all I can do right now is witness this endless flow of my people’s blood. I feel the burden of helplessness, yet I am compelled to document and share both my realities. Bearing witness feels like both a duty and a punishment.

I tell myself that science remains sterile and soulless if it is cut off from reality, and that a test tube is more than simply glass: It is a representation of possibilities for healing. It holds the potential to prevent the normalization of mass killing, to document war crimes, stand witness to atrocities, save lives, honor the victims, and resist forgetting. I owe it to my family in Gaza to use my education as a tool for facing the cruel reality and addressing it with all the skills I acquire.

Like human beings, societies suffer from diseases: injustice, oppression, and neglect. These illnesses also require careful analysis, community-level intervention, and policy-based treatment, much like physical diseases demand medical intervention. Our society must be treated and healed. I keep studying because of this. The contradiction that propels me onward is also the one that plagues me. Because blood is unfairly spilled for every test tube I examine here, I can’t let the world turn away. Bearing witness is my duty and my responsibility, an act of defiance in the face of the world’s ignorance.

The microscope magnifies the truth for me: The deadliest disease we face is not a virus or bacteria; it is indifference.