Students, residents, and educators writing on KevinMD about how physicians are made: medical school, the match, residency, duty hours, supervision, assessment, mistreatment, and the path from student to practicing physician. Many contributors write while still in training, and many write anonymously. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what residents and attendings have said about residency itself, see Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words.
As a first-year medical student, the transition to an online curriculum has posed a unique set of challenges. I am often asked, “How exactly can you become a doctor without having seen a patient, without having put a stethoscope on another human being?” I’ve been told many times already by my professors that to listen to one of the four heart sounds, I should place the diaphragm of my stethoscope …
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The pandemic has only further strengthened my passion to become a physician
By all appearances, I was just another sweaty-palmed medical student taking the first neuroanatomy exam of the semester. The stakes are high with every step toward becoming a doctor, but they were even higher for me that day. Failing the test would mean withdrawing for the semester, effectively delaying my education by a year. Such a precarious position was the consequence of my decision to do the unthinkable, or at …
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Pandemic parenting during medical school
I’ve named the woman lying on the dissection table Betty. She’s 92 and married, with three daughters, twice as many granddaughters, and a retriever named Boots to show for it. Her husband is a woodworker, the last of his generation. He carved Betty’s favorite rocking chair, the one she’d drag onto the porch when the chickadees were out, out of Carolina Cedar. Betty says she’s useless with a wood saw, …
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Is whole-body dissection ethical?
In every single person, there is a furious instinct to guard, preserve, and even trap life. In your final moments, we’re wanting to latch onto your life.
I was standing in the elevator when your daughter (presumably), and her husband walked in. I heard her quietly say that you looked like you were ready to go. She put her head on her husband’s chest and cried. She knew you were ready, …
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Loved ones: You’re with us, too
During the third week of my internal medicine rotation, I was assigned to a patient who would be brought to our floor following an operation. I saw him briefly as they wheeled him into his room but could hear his screams of pain all through our morning rounds. When I walked into the room, he was in agony. He could barely speak, and all he could say was, “It hurts.” …
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The patient who reminded this student to care for everyone equally
In an increasingly technology-oriented world, genuine human connection is becoming rarer. Physicians are taught to emotionally disassociate from their patients for mental self-protection. This detachment can result in a loss of human connection between a doctor and patient, which may interfere with patient health outcomes. Studying great literature, such as Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, allows health care professionals to adopt the patient perspective and gain insight into how …
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Will reading Tolstoy make you a better doctor?
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune is the kind of book that paints you into an entirely new, fantastical world, and you may find yourself wishing you never left. Our humble protagonist, Linus Baker, is an employee of DICOMY (Department in Charge of Magical Youth) who spends his days evaluating orphanages that house, teach, and often abuse magical children in a land where extreme prejudice against …
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The magic of medicine stems from the empathy of one heart opening itself to another
Recently, FIGS – a design-driven medical apparel company – published its latest video advertisement: a young woman in bubblegum pink scrubs struts into view, shaking her FIGS-clad hips for the camera while holding a Medical Terminology for Dummies textbook upside-down. Forget practicing medicine; this woman isn’t fit to drive. The camera pans, emphatically, towards her badge, which reads DO – short for doctor of osteopathic medicine. Ahhh, the viewer is …
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The burden of the badge: an MD student’s response to the FIGS controversy
What has medical school been like in the age of Zoom? Before I was a student doctor, I was an undergraduate student pining after the halls of medicine and the truthfully looking forwards to the rigors of medical school. Upon acceptance to medical school at the University of California, San Diego, I celebrated via Zoom with family. Orientation week was a hybrid model of Zoom and on-campus socially distanced activities. …
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Medical school in the age of Zoom
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how vulnerable access to abortion care is in the U.S. health care system. Abortion is one of the most time-sensitive, potentially life-altering procedures an individual can undergo, however, lawmakers since March have explained it away as an elective and non-essential procedure. Bans and restrictions were instituted in 12 states in March and April, with most overturned thereafter or removed once elective procedures were allowed to …
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The vulnerability of abortion access and training
By my second rotation of the third year, I could not help but feel like a superfluous, if not inconsequential, cog in the medical machine. Yes, we are learners and need to see patients in order to become adequate health care providers – but on a busy labor and delivery (L&D) floor, it was easy to become entrenched in the notion that our efforts have little impact on patient care. …
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Medical students: The work you do matters
I love to mountain bike. The thrill of watching trees zip by and of “sending it” through rock gardens is intoxicating, and this thrill is accompanied by a feeling of accomplishment unlike any other I’ve experienced. However, two of my good friends are professional mountain bike guides, and for a long time, I did not love biking with them – I was unable to bike as fast as they could, …
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Applying the growth mindset to health care
The summer of 2020 is easily one that I would rather forget but has been one that, I believe, will be etched in my memory for a very long time.
After a brief vacation to visit my maternal relatives in India during last winter break, I welcomed 2020 with some good news: I had been selected for a clinical research internship on an aging population study at the National Institute of …
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A medical student’s summer of 2020: Family matters
I’ve just completed traveling around the country for residency interviews, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to ask and answer personal questions.
In my desired specialty of dermatology, a typical interview day consists of short, intense bursts of eight to 12 interviews lasting around 10 minutes each, akin to speed dating. Because dermatology is a small specialty, a large portion of the department tends to …
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When interviewing, remember it goes both ways
I am a third-year medical student at what I believe to be the most diverse medical school in the country. Every year our entering class is made up of at least 20 percent of students who identify as underrepresented in medicine. Beyond that, we make it very clear that if fighting against health and social inequities is not a thread of the very fabric of who you are, this may …
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A medical student’s story of racism and bias
Dear Class of 2024,
You are embarking on a career in medicine during one of the most pivotal times in our nation’s history. Each of you has an intimate experience with COVID-19, whether through first-hand contact with the disease or through the efforts to minimize its spread. And over the course of the next four years, your understanding of this coronavirus will only deepen.
The venerable institutions you are attending have put …
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Uphold your Hippocratic Oath by advocating for action on climate change
The social unrest that has erupted in the wake of the George Floyd murder has prompted many U.S. professional organizations, including those dedicated to medical education, to make changes to advance racial and socioeconomic equity. Right now, a fierce debate rages among medical students over how the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AOA) nominates and inducts fourth-year medical students. An example of this debate is reflected in the new …
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Rapid changes to AOA inclusion are inequitable
Residency and fellowships are tough. While most trainees come in and expect medicine to be the most challenging thing they have to deal with, what makes a training program challenging to navigate seems to be entirely something else. Having trained in programs in both the U.S. and Canada, I felt some trends had to be addressed. I want to take a deep dive into some of these trends, …
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A seasoned trainee: A doctor who shouldn’t have been
