Recently, I received a call from the son of some old friends. This 30-year-old man has been an elementary schoolteacher for the past few years and recently decided that he would like to go to medical school and eventually become a surgeon. He wanted to know what I thought of the idea.
Suppressing the urge to tell him not to even consider …
Think about medical school tuition debt before becoming a doctor
I was talking to a young man who is starting medical school this fall. His tuition at one of South Carolina’s newer schools will be $40,000 per year. That’s admittedly on the high end. On the low end, it runs a paltry $33,000 per year.
And this is all after college, of course. He and others like him are taking out loans to the tune of $240,000 to pay for their …
Why medical education needs to be more affordable
This semester is coming to an end and we are almost halfway done with first year. I say semester, but technically we use the block system. What’s the block system? Here, it refers to dividing the academic school year into single subject blocks. Instead of taking concurrent, year-long courses, we spend several weeks on one course. For instance, we started off with 5 weeks of only biochemistry, then 8 weeks …
Social medicine and its role in medical school curriculum
I just finished another inpatient service stretch at our community hospital with some great cases and lots of good medicine. While attending rounds may have changed a lot in the last 40 years as highlighted in a recent Annals of Internal Medicine article, some things have not changed – the focus on medical student presentations during attending rounds.
Students spend hours through their call nights preparing for …
How medical students should present patients to their attendings
What makes your doctor’s education unique from that of other health care providers?
Recently, I was sitting in on a lecture by one of my favorite physician-teachers (certainly my favorite neurologist). I’ll call him Dr. Deeds (for his resemblance to a character from the movie, Mr. Deeds). He was giving a sort of broad, generalized lecture to prepare us for a series of lectures on neurodegenerative diseases …
Why your doctor’s education is unique
They say you never forget your first “real” patient. Mine was a woman who didn’t need a pelvic exam, but who got one anyway.
Next door, minutes later, my second patient provided another personal first: a male genital and rectal exam, also, without need. Medical students like me begin training by practicing the basics on one another–listening to heart sounds, and looking into each other’s ears and eyes—but eventually, every clinician-in-training must lay …
Pelvic exam by a medical student for the first time
We were taught in grammar school that plagiarism is wrong. It is stealing someone else’s property.
Imagine in high school asking your mother to buy you “Cliff Notes” so you can copy it word for word. Mother would not have liked that, and it wouldn’t have been right.
To write an essay today, you’ll probably start with a search engine. Instantly, Mr. Google delivers many intelligent commentaries on anything, probably better than …
How to check your scientific paper for plagiarism
by Nicholas J. Rohrhoff
Each generation of physicians has no choice but to take on the responsibility of learning the science of medicine – how best to care for patients. But current circumstances dictate that we must also bear the burden of developing policy that creates the best system in which to provide that care.
Creation of a 21st century American healthcare system will require engagement and …
If you’re in medicine, you’re in politics
The following is a brief list of some of the things I think have been useful and worth their money in my first two years of med school:
1. Large, widescreen computer monitor. The volume of information required to internalize during the preclinical years of medical school can’t be compiled and organized on paper. You would end up with bookshelves filled with those gigantic 4″ binders. Therefore, almost everything happens on …
Useful things to buy during medical school
by Tayson DeLengocky, DO
There has been a growing public interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in recent years. Osteopathic manipulative therapy, a form of physical manipulation of the body for improvement of health and body function, has been designated as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to data reported in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative …
Alternative medicine and osteopathic medical education
I recently finished my two months of surgery rotations.
I am happy to say that I really enjoyed my surgery rotations. I thought I was going to be intimidated by the OR, but I found it fascinating. I am relieved, since surgery is a big part of OB/GYN.
Here are a few things I learned on my surgery rotation:
Successful surgery rotation tips
The first time I let a medical student try to intubate was in August. Now in my final year of anesthesia residency, I had volunteered to mentor a third-year medical student for a week. A few weeks in advance I got an email with the form she had filled out. Anesthesia experience: none. Excited to learn: yes.
I met her on Monday morning after she navigated through the preoperative holding area …
How to intubate: Teaching a medical student during anesthesia residency
I’ve made some fairly outrageous claims about the workload of a neurosurgical resident recently. Seems like a reasonable time to lay out exactly what a day on call can be like for me and my fellow residents.
To be fair an average experience may be hard to articulate. Different rotations and different days yield different … adventures. Right now I’m on a service that could hardly be called grueling, but I …
A neurosurgical resident’s typical day
First, this piece is not a how-to guide for getting into medical school.
But I use this ploy for good, and not for evil. Through conversations with a number of non-medical colleagues, I’ve been forced to think a bit more about premedical and medical education. A letter from a reader (which is presented in a highly altered version below) made me decide to more thoroughly and …
Making the decision to go to medical school
This month of my intern year, I am covering night float for the private hospital. Compared to the massive county hospital teeming with laboring patients, churning at all hours of the day and night, the private practice pace is meant to be a luxury for interns seeking respite. And for the most part, life has been pretty nice.
This week however, has been nothing less than hell. One night, I was …
Medical resident superstition and black clouds
by Timothy Dempsey and Pamela Savitz
Last month, the National Football League inducted seven of its all-time great players into its Hall of Fame in a ceremony filled with nostalgia and memories of legendary careers long-finished.
While this was going on, there was another type of induction ceremony taking place around the country. Yet, these celebrations lacked recollections of past achievements by retired legends finally receiving …
The White Coat Ceremony and its effect on medical students
A rising second year medical student read some of my posts and wrote me a kind note asking if I would write something for students. I taught students and ran surgical clerkships at community teaching hospitals for my entire career until about 19 months ago.
I also was prompted to address this subject after reading a recent New York Times story about a new admissions policy at Mt. Sinai …
Advice for a second year medical student
I thought I was an oddball in college. I’ve only recently learned that I was avant garde.
Right before beginning college in 1975, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. Being the first-born son – with decent SATs – of an upwardly mobile Long Island Jewish family, I had relatively little choice in the matter. Notwithstanding this predestiny, I felt confident that medicine was a good fit for my interests …
Social science requirements for pre-medical students
Some reflections on my first semester of medical school.
1. Medical school is hard. Yes, it’s true — medical school is as hard as people who have been through it make it out to be.
I was skeptical when I started mostly because I felt I had challenged myself while doing my undergrad degree and in graduate school. I had taken heavy loads …
Medical school is hard, and other medical student thoughts
At a recent meeting I attended, a vigorous discussion broke out about what medical students, residents and attendings should wear, and more importantly what they should not wear.
Interestingly, patients have been asked to weigh in on this discussion. What to wear is also on the mind of many current second year medical students who may find themselves trying to take study breaks from USMLE 1 to go buy …
What residents and medical students should wear in the hospital
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
