During the recent winter break, I went home and visited my yearly slew of doctors for check-ups: vision, dental, gynecology, etc. In the exam room, my new gynecologist instructed me to put my feet up in the stirrups. I had recently learned in a seminar at school that new guidelines on Pap smears suggest spacing them every three years for women at my age, and I wondered, “Do I even …
The culture of permission in medicine
One of the major challenges of being on medical school rotations is the necessity of changing rotations every four weeks, and how adapting to each new specialty feels like going through the first day of school all over again.
I want to share my experience on other side of the coin. About a year ago, I started participating in Stanford’s Continuity of Care program, a clerkship in which I am excused from …
Why medical students need more continuity of care training
Think all the way back to your grade school years. Did you know that your personality traits were starting to be honed for the work you do today? Let me give you some examples about myself and see if you can relate.
I remember the praise and exhilaration of being the only kid in the class to get a 100 percent on an extremely difficult second-grade spelling test. My teacher told …
The hidden curriculum of medicine
After teaching biology and nutrition for three years, I began my journey back to my original dream: a career in medicine. The most common sense approach to me was to return back to college and start taking the necessary pre-requisites to apply for medical school. My original major in college begin special education, I had no previous college-level science background, so I began taking introductory biology and chemistry at a …
The post-baccalaureate pre-health program experience
“Ms. Taylor*?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m so deeply sorry to you and the team. You all helped me so much when I was here. But I started drinking a day after I left and blacked out.”
Two weeks ago, Ms. Taylor was found by her sister lying unconscious on the bathroom floor after a week-long alcohol binge. Next to her was a suicide note.
“My depression is robbing me of my freedom. I …
Do whatever it takes to conquer this depression. Now and forever.
We were in the middle of the morning routine – sign out between mouthfuls of eggs and homefries – when the call came in overhead, “Code Blue, 9 West. Code Blue, 9 West.” Just like that, our team snapped into action, the continued banter only thinly concealing a change in demeanor: backs straight, jaws set, we walked with a sense of purpose. There was a life on the line.
By the …
Reflections after a medical student’s first code blue
The most important piece of advice I can give to incoming medical students is to be vigilant about how you are feeling day-to-day and to be aware of your actions. As is often said, our personalities, the distinctive makeup that makes us who we are, are set in stone. If you are a mindful person, you’ll stay that way even as you get older. If you are someone who likes …
Why medical students should develop and increase self-awareness
Obesity is a global epidemic, and its prevalence is increasing in every part of the world. While we have new medications and complex surgical techniques that promote weight loss, the awareness of healthy eating habits and dietary education are still the most important factors in helping control body weight.
Unfortunately, nutrition knowledge appears confined largely to books and exams; as the doctors barely engage in nutrition counseling with patients. In teaching …
Why doctors-in-training need better nutritional education
I have spent the greater portion of my 20s enduring a premature quarter-life crisis. Patterns of self-doubt and debilitating anxiety became my new normal.
I was rejected from medical school — again.
After taking time to process the reality that I would have to wait another year to re-apply, I fervently journeyed through a messy jungle of introspection that led me to these six lessons. Although I learned more than I could …
6 things learned from being rejected from medical school
A face feels nothing like a frozen pig’s foot, I thought, as I guided a curved needle into the woman’s cheek, drawing the absorbable thread across her still-bleeding wound. Two wraps around the needle driver and I pulled the nearly invisible thread through, bringing the edges of her skin back together, securing my first knot.
“Hey, have you ever sutured?” the ER doctor had asked, just minutes before.
“Only in class,” I replied, …
Patients are an integral part of medical student education
We learn about it in school as a formula. There is a checklist that we are given, and we ask our patients these eight questions and then calculate whether or not they have depression. It’s so simple. Anyone can do it! I never once thought that I would be calculating my own score at the prime of my education.
I entered medical school full of hope after years of failures and …
How this student took care of his severe depression in medical school
I would like to offer some words of encouragement to what many call the “non-traditional” students pursuing medicine.
The term encompasses people in different aspects in their lives. It may be someone in a different line of work looking at medicine as a second career or another just getting started that didn’t take the traditional path in undergrad.
My own journey
I started medical school at 28 after spending six years as a …
10 tips for non-traditional medical school applicants
It’s no secret that physician job dissatisfaction is soaring to unprecedented levels, with over 50 percent of practicing physicians reporting burnout. While many factors have contributed to this epidemic in America over the last 20 years — not least of all electronic medical records that are taking a heavy (and unacceptable) toll on physicians’ time — this is not a phenomenon unique to the United States.
I went to …
Despite physician burnout, medical schools are still hard to get into. Why is that?
ADVERTISEMENT
Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious.
Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift?
I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and post-run. However, this post-call/run state of body and mind is one I have learned to love and embrace during this residency whirlwind.
I’m not myself unless I’m wearing scrubs or running clothes. …
Residency training, and training in residency
Dear Mom and Dad,
I love you, and thank you. The rest of this letter is an attempt to write something more eloquent and thoughtful, but those are the best and truest words I can ever speak to you. I made the decision to enter the medical field when the rest of our family is from a business and finance background. Despite being unfamiliar with the different hurdles of application cycles, …
A medical student’s letter to her parents
There has been a profound deterioration in the education of our medical students. I only make this contention after having taught over a hundred medical students across five continents, often one-on-one and for extended periods. Although the majority of those I’ve taught have been students educated at international medical institutions, a substantial number have been those from U.S. medical schools. While I do recognize that those that find their way …
What’s the biggest problem with medical education?
Late one evening, I received a text from my oldest daughter.
“What in medicine, that we do now, will we think is barbaric in 50 years?”
Wow. They play more provocative bar games now than they played when I was in my 20s.
I promptly texted back my knee-jerk response: “chemotherapy.” As we are on the brink of precision medicine, what will the next generation think of our “slash, burn and poison” paradigm …
For some reason, social media does a good job with sculpting our lives into perfectly organized displays that are available to look at during every breathing second of our lives thanks to the revolutionary invention called the smartphone. I look at pictures of people studying with beautifully organized desks, smiles, intricately designed planners and captions about how wonderful their day at home was with those planners.
And I completely understand and …
Medical school isn’t like an Instagram feed
I’ve been mean to my body lately. And since I know better, I talk negatively to myself about why I continue to be mean to my body. Lately, I’ve been considering why I do this — why we do this — and how to think about ourselves differently.
Several months ago I had immobilizing low back pain. I broke my low back in high school, and this pain was similar. After …
How to spark the attention of patients
I recently attended a small dinner hosting Robert Lefkowitz, MD, the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery for G-protein coupled receptors. Throughout the night, the conversation traversed a diverse range of topics — from his adventures in Stockholm, Sweden to his work-life balance — but his remarks on one particular subject stuck with me. It turns out that Dr. Lefkowitz, when interviewing candidates to work in …
Standing on the shoulders of the basic science researchers who came before us
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
