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.
Over the past month, I’ve slowly rediscovered my love for writing. Though I have never considered myself a strong writer, I have fond memories of it providing an outlet for my thoughts. The history essays that everyone dreaded writing in high school were some of my favorite assignments. I spent days wording and rewording my sentences while my classmates wrote them quickly the night before they were due. It felt …
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A medical student rediscovers a love for writing
After finishing three years in medical school, I recently moved over to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I decided to pursue an MBA in addition to my MD and will graduate two years from now with both degrees.
I’m not alone. There are 11 MD/MBA candidates in my business school class, including nine from Stanford. Our cohort is part of a small but growing trend towards doctors obtaining business training. The …
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3 reasons MDs should get MBAs
I am currently a fourth-year medical student, and I will not accept mediocrity in my life any longer (and neither should you).
When you were growing up did you ever wish for happiness? Did you ask for a good life? Did you want to feel fulfilled and self-actualized? Yeah me too. We are meant to reach for the stars, we are meant to go for our dreams, and we are meant …
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My future as a physician looks mediocre at best
As the process of applying to medical school and residency becomes hyper-competitive, we medical students often feel forced to pursue our passions only in ways that are “high yield.” It may seem counterintuitive, but the further we go in our medical training, the more inertia we seem to have about giving our time and energy to the everyday people in need. We’re so pressed for time from our participation in …
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Top 5 reasons why medical students need to volunteer
One cold February morning during my third year of medical school, I walked through the entrance of the rural hospital where I was doing a nine-month rotation and made my way to the nurses’ station. Feeling the warmth return to my face, I set down my coat and bag and hung my stethoscope around my neck.
The charge nurse, Barb, waved me to her computer.
“Kristie, you have a patient.”
She shuffled through …
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A medical student faces looming death and new life in one day
If your partner is a doctor or medical student, prepare yourself for dozens — possibly hundreds — of conversations about their career. If you’re lucky, these conversations are pleasant moments in which you get to show pride about your partner’s accomplishments, discuss the challenges openly, or talk about something you have learned as an outsider looking into the medical establishment.
Unfortunately, many of us experience a far more frustrating reality when …
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Is your partner a doctor? Be prepared for these destructive comments.
In medical training, each morning begins with pre-rounds, a sort of prologue to the work day that gives us a preview of our patients’ conditions. Like a daily ritual, we arrive in the hospital as the sun begins to peek over the horizon and proceed to visit each of their rooms. Some of them are still sleeping, but we wake them up anyway to needle them with questions. Any pain? …
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How do you talk to a dying patient?
“Being able to feel safe with other people defines mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
– Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
On my last day of rotation in the psychiatric emergency room, we received a new patient. The keywords and phrases rang through the air: “teenager,” “transgender,” “homeless,” “assaulted recently,” “says she feels a full-grown baby kicking.”
I immediately asked if I could see this patient, and was …
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Treating LGBTQ youth affected by violence: Here’s what you should know
Medical school attracts very similar kind of people. Most of us are high-achieving, intelligent people with the common goal of helping others. It is beautiful to think of all of the potential patients we could serve working together. Applying to medical school and medical education often suppresses that potential.
Somewhere in between all of the courses one must take to enter medical school and the dreadful MCAT, it becomes a number …
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Stop the competition in medical school
As a therapist, I have worked with medical students struggling with depression and anxiety, sometimes addiction but mostly desperate to save what is left of their failing relationships. They are torn by guilt and conflicting concerns that make them feel out of control. Medical school demands more than they can give, and yet they give, and give, and give until finally they are depleted. Ironically, this is when they need …
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The sacrifices medical students have to make
There is no feeling that is quite the same as the “first day of school” — a blend of excitement, nervousness, and uncertainty that almost every student experiences from first grade through college (and sometimes beyond). By now, I’ve had a lot of “first days” in my life. Even so, when I officially started my clinical rotations just over three months ago, that all-too-familiar feeling of nervous excitement was reliably …
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Why the third year of medical school is like the first day of school
Through a thoughtful, community-based education program at my medical school, I spent a week rotating with my local fire department. Immediately, I was immersed in the first-responder field. I learned how to set up a transcutaneous pacemaker, properly unfold a fire hose, and plan ground strategy for wildfires. But what I will remember most years from now is something much less technical: the incredible value of team camaraderie.
More than once, …
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What medicine can learn from the fire department about team-based care
It’s that time again — time to dust off your nicest suit and prepare for either residency or fellowship interviews. Being knee-deep in interview season for infectious diseases fellowships, my interview days bear some resemblance to my residency interviews, yet also are quite different. I have a unique opportunity this year to be a part of the recruitment and decision process for our internal medicine residency program, in addition to being a fellowship applicant.
I was visiting …
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Dos and don’ts for your residency interview
I began one of my medical oncology rotations alongside my co-resident: an MD/PhD, fast-track (pre-matched into fellowship) future oncologist. Among my three interns that rotation, two were “Harvard kids.” Needless to say, I was intimidated. My colleague and counterpart not only had the entire catalogue of genomic alterations at the tip of his tongue, he knew and understood their implications on disease. I saw my intern having a long conversation …
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Being ashamed to acquire knowledge is a tragedy
Pain. It permeates every aspect of medicine, crawls into the deepest corners of our practices, sinks its claws in and stays put. Opiates are at the center of a vicious national debate, and our patients are trapped in its clutches. But my thoughts are less on medications, protocols, and procedures and more on how we approach the patient who cries pain. Through everything I have observed, as a caretaker and …
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Medical students need exposure to chronic pain patients
Upon starting medical school, I remember feeling amazed to learn just how many of my classmates had physician parents. I felt like I was in the minority, not having any family members of my own who were doctors. This made me realize: Physician parents tend to breed physician children. But why? I soon discovered that the answer may lie in the genetics of personality.
The academic study of personality has grown extensively over …
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Physician parents, physician children. Why?
Medical couples are experts at delaying gratification. Medical school’s rigid, unpredictable, and demanding schedule forces couples to postpone vacations, outings, dinner plans, and relationship progress. Glen Gabbard and Roy Menninger, in their book Medical Marriages, call this common trend among single- and dual-physician couples “the psychology of postponement.” They explain that medical school and demanding attending physicians become “a convenient scapegoat” for couples looking to avoid living their lives or …
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Medical couples inadvertently sabotage their long-term happiness
“I can’t find the fetal heart tones.” The nurse states with a tone of underlying panic as she exits the patient room.
It’s around 7 a.m., and those of us working the night shift are getting ready for morning sign out before we can head home and get some much-needed sleep after a crazy 14 hours shift.
“Tessa, go scan her” the resident nods towards the ultrasound machine, and I cheerfully follow …
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A medical student’s struggle with continuity of care
Walking into Riley Pediatrics Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, and having just completed two prior rotations in emergency medicine at two different level 1 trauma centers, I thought I would be able to easily fit in with pediatric population here. I thought I would be able to slide fluidly from patient to patient, oral reports to consults, while staying connected with the rest of the team. I thought I would be …
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You can’t prepare for a rotation in the pediatric ER
From the moment I entered medical school, I have been viewed as dollar signs by many individuals. Every medical student is visualized this way. Let’s start from the beginning.
Most medical students come from humble beginnings. My father is a bluegrass musician, and my parents couldn’t pay for my medical school. So I had to take out loans. This was the same situation for the vast majority of my friends. In …
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Medical students are viewed as dollar signs
