I failed my Step 1 medical school board exam by 1 point. This was very hard for me to process, and I consistently wondered if I would have passed if I had just waited an additional week. This new challenge led me to reach out to a new resource: the disability office.
Never before had I considered my medical diagnosis of endometriosis and anxiety as a “disability.” I had obviously done …
The middle-aged veteran curled up on the uncomfortable foam mattress appears irritated. Perhaps he is irritated at himself, knowing that he has gone through this process multiple times, or irritated at his providers, who simply think of him as a chronic alcoholic. I greet him for the first time, sitting on the empty bed opposite him. I ask him a set of questions that I must go through with every …
I was two months into my first year of medical school when I experienced it for the first time.
“Room 214 … oh yeah, she’s a real pain. She will probably talk your ear off and come up with a new self-diagnosis that she will want to get a full workup for. She always does.”
Nervously, I laughed it off. I grew up in a household where doctors are held in high …
My grandfather passed in the early hours of December 11 and was buried the next day. It all happened very quickly. The last time I saw him was eight years ago. And that was the final time because I couldn’t make it to his funeral. Hopefully, when I look back at this, I’ll always remember to cherish my time with family, no matter how busy medical school or residency gets.
My …
I first heard about Sir William Osler (1849-1919) through my primary care physician. His biography stated: “I practice family medicine because every day I get to meet new people from all over the world. I get to hear their stories, meet their families, and help them heal. In some cases, I get to see them again and again, building trust and respect while forming meaningful relationships. To me, there is …
The white coat ceremony marks the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of medical students. An academic ritual steeped in symbolism, the ceremony calls on new medical students to reflect upon and adhere to the values that guide the profession. The honor of graduating medical school returns these soon-to-be-doctors to the ideals of medicine. They must take an oath to avoid harm, build trust, and …
The highly anticipated release of Marvel Studios’ Eternals has people excited about superheroes. When I see an individual in a white coat and stethoscope or a person in scrubs, I see a real superhero, someone who works in the health care field. Our health care providers showed us their superpowers when our country was infected by the novel coronavirus. We witnessed collaboration amongst medical disciplines to combat this deadly virus. …
Thousands of medical students are in the midst of interviewing for their dream job. The importance of interviewing well cannot be overstated. Below are the top five common interview questions that could be asked during your interview.
Tell me about yourself.
Purpose:
The dusty gym is a blur in my peripheral vision as I grip the high bar tightly and swing downwards from a handstand. I slightly pike at my hips to avoid hitting the low bar behind me before recruiting my abdominal muscles to tap my legs through a transitional arch position and complete the circle around the bar. Just before I return to vertical, my hand slips. I feel the …
Mentorship is one of the cornerstones of growth as a clinician and student. Given that so much of medicine is learned outside of a classroom and through individual experiences, mentorship helps to clearly round out these experiences and help us grow as clinicians. I remember starting medical school and being told at every corner to look for mentors. I wanted to make sure that I was able to grow at …
Here — outside with nature — this was where I needed to be. It was raining cats and dogs, unlike the light drizzle earlier in the day.
Earlier in the day.
Earlier in the day, I could still see the casket go into the ground, adding finality to the affair as if death was not final enough. Goodbye, Baba. I was yet to cry. That was why I needed to be here. …
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 …
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“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), …
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