An excerpt from Love in the time of medical school: Build a happy, healthy relationship with a medical student.
My dad is the oldest of four boys and my grandfather was an anesthesiologist for many years. Apparently, the women who wanted to marry into the family all had to pass …
Navigating the minefield of medical speak in your relationship
I was in the midst of my family medicine clinical rotation when my world came crashing down. I had failed my Step 1 boards. I would never be a doctor. It was a nightmare that unfolded over three failed attempts, from which I awoke in a new reality where I was no longer a medical student — and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change that.
I poured everything …
Picking up the pieces of a broken medical dream
How important is it for a doctor to want to be a doctor?
At first glance, that question is ludicrous. The path to becoming a practicing physician is so long and tortuous that no one would do it if they didn’t want to. Right? First, there’s the four years of undergraduate education, then four years of medical school, then at least three years of residency. No one has ever suggested that …
Why do doctors who hate being doctors still practice?
Interview season is upon us, and with the excitement of those dings from ERAS comes twenty tons of added stresses. Being in the new age of lightning speed communication via phones, tablets, laptops, etc., we no longer have use for invitations via snail mail. For obvious reasons, this makes for a much more effective process. However, giving thousands of high-strung Type A applicants the ability to respond to an invite …
Robots read EKGs. Computers interpret chest X-rays. Algorithms decide which treatment a patient gets.
I asked myself this question this morning, “What job can I do as a doctor that cannot be done by a computer or a robot?” And one of the first things I said to myself was, “Comfort a human.”
But I dwelt on this for a moment and found it’s not quite true. Because computers and robots can …
The one job robots can never take away from doctors
Let’s conduct an experiment. Ask a baby boomer, say someone over the age of 60, about the landing on the moon in 1969. You can count on an emphatic response with people recounting the memorable moment when the moment was televised. The reverence, admiration and utmost respect for the NASA’s scientists and astronauts is practically palpable. NASA, considered the pinnacle of scientific innovation at the time, practically glowed with a …
Who will inspire millennials in health care?
More than two years ago, I wrote about some of the obstacles — as well as the opportunities — that introverted medical students face during training. Now that I have many rotations under my belt, it’s time for an update about my experiences on rotations, along with some helpful advice to newcomers.
The challenges
First, the challenges: Medical school rotations are very fast-paced, and our team members (co-workers and superiors) …
The challenges and rewards of being an introvert in medicine
As a male medical student, I have developed a growing interest in and enthusiasm for recent efforts to raise awareness about workforce gender disparities in medicine. Though women comprise over 45 percent of resident physicians and 50 percent of medical students in the United States, research reveals deficits in key surrogate measures of successful integration. There are pay and promotion gaps, and women are much less …
Lifting up women physicians makes us all better
Breathing is different when you know what your lungs look like.
I first realized this during a meditation session at Stanford’s Windhover building. The space — a large, subdivided room — is a self-described sanctuary in the heart of campus. The walls are mostly glass, broken up by long, clay-colored steel beams. Natural light, filtered through the surrounding trees, streams in to illuminate five larger-than-life paintings — a series called “The …
A meditation in medical school
“Please walk slowly,” cautioned Sunita, my interpreter, as I crept down the stony switchback trail towards the rural Nepali village of Dhulikhel. Sunita, in her petite navy ballet flats, hopped down the rocks as easily as the speckled goats grazing nearby.
Emboldened by her speed, I stepped along eagerly, only to catch my size-ten neon running sneaker on a root and splat face-first into the dust. Looking up, I saw four …
Here’s how a trip to Nepal stopped this medical student’s depression
The patient is a 27-year-old Caucasian woman: slender, well-groomed. She is sitting in the office of her urologist, and she is unconsciously twisting her hands as she interrupts the doctor, having finally worked up the nerve.
“I know you told me to expect some pain for a while after the lithotripsy. But I’ve been having pain in my bladder, even when I don’t think there are any stones. It started two …
She sees difficult patients, but is a difficult patient herself
A resident suffering from depression drinks too much and sleeps through a hospital shift the next morning. Another resident walks out of a patient room in the midst of a panic attack.
As family medicine educators, how do we best handle these health concerns in our residents?
The pendulum in medical training can swing in two directions. At one end, residents are indoctrinated into a macho mentality, where the need for self-care …
How do we best handle the health concerns of our residents?
It is early on a Saturday morning when I walk out of the elevator of Doan Hall looking for a nursing desk to call the fourth-year anesthesiology resident I am supposed to be shadowing. Instead, I am met with a set of double doors and a staff-only sign.
Before walking through the doors, I decided to read the placard placed on the wall next to them. As I begin to read, …
Medical students must have this mindset
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In the 70s when I trained, we had no add-on curricula; we had no milestones; we had little interference from governing bodies. What we did have were role models.
In the current century, when I talk with students and residents (and I do that very often) they talk about what they see or do not see from their attending physicians and fellow residents. The carefully constructed curricula result from excellent intentions, …
Why positive role models are essential in medical education
Empathy is a cryptic term. Those in the health care profession can certainly spout off a variety of phrases and metaphors that are typically used to describe the concept of empathy in the educational setting. Throughout my medical education thus far it has been described as “putting yourself in another’s shoes” or “sharing in another’s emotion.”
We are also taught early on what empathy is not. Empathy is not feeling sorry …
Empathy is better felt than defined
For patients who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, a medical visit can be unexpectedly stressful. LGBTQIA+ people have to keep track of who they’re out to and how out they are, especially if they fit more than one letter of the acronym; some people might know they’re gay, fewer people might know they’re transgender, while some people probably don’t know anything about their private life at all.
Why does this …
Establishing trust with LGBTQIA+ patients
The emergency department is a place of unpredictability. Some days are a whirlwind, others drag, but both can be interesting. On a calmer day, I found myself, a fourth-year medical student, working with a physician I will call Dr. Smith. We discovered that we shared a common love for music, and between patients, we discussed everything from opera, to banjo, to Indian music. I am a composer and amateur classical …
A place for music in the emergency department
Dear medical student, I’m sorry.
You had just finished two years of didactic learning and couldn’t wait to feel like a “real” doctor. You finally were starting your clerkships, that is, ultimately working with patients and getting deep in the trenches.
You were bright-eyed as you pulled on your pristine short white coat. You got to the hospital at 5:15 a.m., 15-minutes early for the first day of your very first third-year …
An open apology to medical students from a resident
Congratulations! At this point, you are almost halfway done with your first year of medical school. Either you have finally figured out what’s going on, or if you’re like me, you are still trying to figure it out. Relax, take a few deep breaths. Medical school is unlike anything you have ever done. The volume of information, constant testing, and overwhelming need to keep up with your peers is an …
A letter to my sister (and all other first-year medical students)
“I lift things up and put them down.”
This quote is from a commercial for Planet Fitness I have seen in the past. It portrays a bulky body builder on a tour of the gym premises. There is no real communication with the tour guide since he keeps saying that he lifts things up and puts them down, irrespective of what the tour …
The medical student who had a genuine human profile
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