While I am commonly considered to be a friendly person, I never had very many friends. This was likely because I was too much. I am was too brown, too bookish, too loud, too assertive, just too much in every single category. It was hard for people to accept me, and I gave up early on in high school to make friends. I fell in where I could, my boyfriends …
Black feminism describes that Black women are inherently valuable and the specific liberation of Black women is necessary in its own right. It parses out these political identities and desires to have true humanity for Black women—arguing that it is impossible for there to be bondage of any other group when we liberate marginalized genders and Black people as these populations are seen as the most marginalized …
“He’s not even an MD, Jimmy. He’s a DO. This guy can’t even afford the good letters.”
“They’re basically the same, but they’re totally not. MD is Coca-Cola. DO is RC Cola.”
“A DO is like an off-brand doctor.”
These quotes came from Hasan Minaj’s interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. It spread like wildfire through the DO community. This is not the first time that DOs have been belittled by …
When you enter medical school, you put your trust into an unspoken promise: Work hard, pass all your classes, and you’ll come out as a doctor after four years. While mostly true, this perception doesn’t take into account the residency application process and the possibility of graduating without a position as a physician-in-training. This thought didn’t cross my mind until I decided to apply for otolaryngology, one of the most …
We’ve all been told by a well-meaning friend, family member, or therapist, “You can’t care for others unless you care for yourself first.” Put your oxygen mask on first, blah blah. But in medical training, we repeatedly demonstrate that, unfortunately, you can provide great care for patients while neglecting yourself. Medicine rewards self-sacrifice and hard work, often at the cost of physician happiness or wholeness.
Maybe it starts in undergraduate school, …
I learned a valuable lesson about mentoring medical students during clinical rotations amid the COVID pandemic, and it’s not as easy as you think.
I have been in medical education, either in it or teaching it, for 20 years. I have spent countless hours doing lectures, giving hospital grand rounds, or leading bedside teaching rounds to those who want to follow in my footsteps as a clinical expert. But some are …
While we’re not there yet, we may be approaching a point where we’re facing a significant skills shortage among surgeons. A 2017 study by Meritt Hawkins found that 52 percent of orthopedic surgeons were 55 and older, as were 48 percent of general surgeons. As many surgeons approach retirement age, there is a pressing need to up-skill and up-level the next generation of surgeons, especially with demand …
I remember the second I received my first phone call from admissions to a medical school. I was sitting at an airport, after having finished another interview. After putting down the phone, I started to cry. All of those years of hard work had been recognized, and I was finally welcomed into the profession of my dreams. I never thought that I accomplished something less meaningful because it was a …
Increased prevalence of ophthalmic diseases due to continued population growth and aging requires an increase in the number of ophthalmologists nationwide. Multiple sources, including the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), report that the number of people with the most common eye diseases will double between 2010 and 2050. This includes the elderly suffering from long-term eye diseases such as cataracts, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), …
You are more likely to be struck by lightning than be born with cri du chat syndrome and OCD. The chances of becoming a performer with these diagnoses are even smaller, and yet, what a show Tanner performed.
His performance is meticulously planned out. Pump soap dispenser twice. Rub hands three times. Wash quickly. Create bubble! As the first bubble emerges, the kids take notice.
Pushing her wheelchair forward, Maria pops the …
First off, congratulations to the Class of 2025 for getting into medical school. With the pandemic restrictions lifting, enjoy the next few months doing the things you love because medical school will take an emotional and financial toll on you. According to AAMC, the median debt for medical students in 2019 was $200,000. Unfortunately, fundraising for scholarships was difficult for many organizations due to the pandemic despite more students seeking …
Have you ever been to one of those areas in the hospital called “the library” or “the educational/academic center”? No, I’m not talking about the athenaeum at the universities. The library we are talking about is the one at the teaching hospital specifically dedicated to the education of the trainee residents and fellows. Usually found on the first floor, it is a place where anyone can walk in and use …
Mentorship. We all do it; we all benefit from it. But we rarely talk about how the mentor-mentee relationship looks. We rarely talk about ways to improve a mentorship relationship or even have decent mentor-mentee relationships. In fact, many of us likely get into medicine because we want to help patients, but forget how important mentorship often is on our way to learning to achieve such a goal.
Here are 5 …
I was first diagnosed with major depressive disorder as a preteen after my teenage sister died. I attempted suicide three years later. This would be the first of several attempts and the first of countless times I felt my life was not worth living. But I am not unique.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 1 person dies by suicide every 11 minutes.
My depression is like …
It’s a well-known fact that medical school has grown increasingly competitive over the past decade. While this is true that getting into medical school has become somewhat harder, what is more concerning is that for many students, admission to, and paying for, medical school does not guarantee a career as a physician. A critical part of becoming a physician is graduate medical education, or residency. It is well-known that there …
Being a medical student in a family that does not have any doctors, honestly, has many perks. Although I may not have all the experience a tenured physician has in diagnostics and clinical management, I recognize the importance my current exposures in medicine give me in addressing the concerns of my family members. While answers may not always come to me immediately when I’m asked things like, …
The COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on institutions that we did not think were pausable, allowing us to ask critical questions regarding their relevance and necessity. One such institution is the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). During COVID-19, Prometric sites closed, delaying exams for many. In response to public outcry, Step 2 CS has become defunct. Before COVID-19, there had been calls to reform the expensive licensing exams, …
Feedback is an integral part of growing as a clinician. We all have room for improvement, and each and every one of us is a work in progress. We all grow by having others observe us and discuss how we are doing with each of us. Giving feedback also becomes an integral part of our medical education and formal training, and it must be something we strive to become good …
Introduction
The USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills (CS) exam was implemented to assess medical students/graduates based on 12 standardized clinical encounters. The exam was graded as pass/fail based on three components: integrative clinical encounter (ICE), communication and interpersonal skills (CIS), and spoken English proficiency (SEP). To receive an overall passing grade, an examinee was required to pass all three components.
Over the years, there have been increasing demands to …
The 2020-2021 residency application cycle was profoundly altered as a result of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States which led to a completely virtual season for nearly all specialties. At the time of this publication, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and ophthalmology have announced virtual interviews for the upcoming 2021-2022 cycle. Using lessons from the inaugural “virtual” cycle, many residency …
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