As we entered medical school, we were starry-eyed and hopeful about becoming primary care physicians. We romanticized building relationships with patients, providing high quality health care, serving our communities, and removing obstacles patients face when seeking care.
However, rotation after rotation, we were bombarded with discouragement.
“Being a primary care physician isn’t what it used to be.”
“You can’t get the support you need …
The erosion of physician mentorship is not just a quiet tragedy; it is an accelerating crisis with rippling effects across the health care system. While much has been written about physician burnout and workforce shortages, far less attention has been paid to the vacuum this leaves in clinical mentorship, particularly in primary care. The implications for physician associates/assistants (PAs) are especially profound.
PAs were historically trained in the postgraduate space under …
Medical education is a long and arduous route and can take from twelve to sixteen years of education which includes three to four years of undergraduate degree, one to two gap years before medical school, four years of medical school and three to seven years of residency training.
To address this shortage, we have come up with solutions for creating three-year medical schools, starting tracks for physician assistants/associates and nurse practitioners. …
For over a year, we, Korea’s medical students, have lived under the weight of institutional threats
What began as a disagreement over health policy escalated into an all-out campaign to silence us. We were told that if we resisted, we would be punished. At first, the punishment was supposed to be academic probation. But on May 2, 2025, something changed.
Despite university rules that previously allowed for probation or suspension, the government …
It was recently match day in the medical school world. Students who have given their lives to their studies to become doctors learned where they’d spend the next three to seven years in their chosen specialty completing their residency. This is one of the highlights each year as newly minted dermatologists, surgeons, psychiatrists, and internal medicine doctors, among many others, begin their next chapters and disperse across the country. It’s …
I hated so much of medical school.
Not all of it.
I started eager,
positive and bright.
I was excited.
But I struggled to belong.
There was unwritten, informal
segregation.
Fresher’s week:
I was stoked to try out new things…
Hockey and rowing turned me away—
lack of experience.
I tried something more familiar:
Hindu society.
I was shocked—
they asked me what caste I was from.
It was even in the lecture theatre:
white rugby at the back,
serious Asians at the front,
party Asians in the middle,
cool …
In January 2022, the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 transitioned to a pass/fail format, sparking debate over how best to assess physician competence in an era where medical misinformation proliferates online. Although medical students loathe any mention of exams, we cannot deny that licensing exams are an important barrier to ensure baseline knowledge, and to prevent quacks and snake-oil salesmen from harming the public. This article explores …
Taylor Walker, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, lived in a town of under 500 people in rural Nebraska. In 2019, she told NPR that after experiencing pregnancy pains, she endured a four-hour round-trip journey to see her physician only to discover her regular doctor was unavailable. In the end, she was forced to repeat this arduous trek multiple times just to receive necessary care. For Taylor and countless Americans, this …
So much of the world is centered around looking out for ourselves. We get caught up in our own problems, our own routines, and sometimes, we forget to stop and think about what someone else might be going through. It’s easy to do—we’re all busy, all trying to figure things out. But when we step outside of our own lives, even just for a moment, we start to see the …
Let’s talk about a trend I’m seeing—and honestly, I can’t stay quiet about it anymore.
Across the country, more and more NP programs are telling highly experienced family nurse practitioners (FNPs) working in acute care settings that they can’t precept ACNP (Acute Care Nurse Practitioner) students. Meanwhile, those very same programs are approving Physician Assistants to precept ACNP students in those exact same roles.
I’m all for collaboration, and I respect the …
Many years ago, I thought I was going to be a mechanical engineer. My studies revolved around case-based learning and field work, all of which I enjoyed immensely. Then I learned about biomedical engineering and decided to go to medical school.
For the first two years of medical school, my education focused on classroom didactics and instruction, with little to no involvement in what was happening with patients in the real …
Four rigorous years, filled with countless long days and nights of education, is often just the beginning for most medical trainees. The Match and subsequent residency await on the horizon. It is the norm in health care, and very few stray from that path. But medicine is a long and arduous path, one that can take its toll on trainees and physicians alike.
As I entered my final year …
The first time I witnessed someone die in front of me will stay with me for a long time. I was only eighteen, early in my EMT experience, and transporting a patient home from the hospital while my colleague drove the ambulance. The patient was an eighty-seven-year-old man, and although I do not remember the exact diagnosis, I knew he was on hospice, nonverbal, and expected to pass soon. He …
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We have all been asked the infamous question as medical students: “What kind of doctor do you want to be, or what specialty do you want to specialize in?” If you have already made up your mind, answering this question can be exciting; if not, it can be extremely intimidating.
Regardless of what drew you to medicine—parental pressure, a strong desire to rescue lives, or simply just a few too many …
Test anxiety is common among medical students, especially with the high-stakes USMLE. While some anxiety can drive performance, too much can spiral into paralyzing “what-ifs.” Here’s how to turn anxiety into an ally and perform at your best on exam day:
1. Recognize the role of anxiety. Accept that a certain level of anxiety can be a motivating force. It keeps you alert, focused, and prepared to tackle the task ahead. …
In her KevinMD article, Janet Constance Coleman-Belin describes the overwhelming difficulties increasingly being seen by many during their medical education and now facing many more of our young, bright minds as they choose and migrate into their future life’s work.
I suggest that a majority of these difficulties are pressures witnessed and felt as these students begin to enter clinical workplaces—the same pressures being experienced by …
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Just as society has been transformed by technology solutions driven by connectivity and ubiquitous information, medical practice is undergoing a digital transformation that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s medical students will practice in a world where technology is a more integrated part of health care; technology and innovation should become a cornerstone of medical education and training. This proactive approach will prepare future physicians for the technology-driven health …
I was approaching the final rotations of my third year in medical school when it came time to create my fourth-year schedule. I wanted to participate in electives that aligned with my passions for advocacy and addressing health disparities but were also unique. That’s when I stumbled upon a few courses at a nearby law school that explored the intersection of law and medicine.
Though I knew the course was offered …
How do I get accepted to medical school? This is the question at the forefront of every premedical student’s mind. As the competitiveness of each medical school application cycle increases and it feels like all those applying have cured cancer, dedicated their entire lives to some amazing community service effort, achieved a perfect MCAT score, and found time to invent a time machine, the importance of good writing and weaving …
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Imagine this: Two attending surgeons undertake a surgical procedure on a patient. The surgical residents have draped the patient; the surgical tech and the circulating nurse are ready to begin the operation. The surgical attendings enter the OR, scrub in, and move to the next order of business: “How are we going to bill for this procedure?”
Often, there is an unspoken—and spoken—consensus that the medical field is a lucrative one. …
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