A response to “You’re a medical student. And it’s so obvious why.”
We don’t even have to ask, and we can tell by the bags under your eyes.
It’s so obvious that you are a medical student.
References in every pocket of your short white coat, pulling down on your shoulders until you hunch over. You force yourself to stand up straight …
This is how I know you’re a medical student
During my family medicine rotation, my very first clinical clerkship of medical school, I was assigned to make a home visit to one of my preceptor’s patients—a man I will call Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones had congestive heart failure, COPD, and a barrage of other chronic health problems. He was a pleasant gentleman but had a low level of health literacy and had been doing a poor job of taking his …
Educating community health conscious physicians
There he stood at our beach party, the family doctor I grew up admiring. I timidly approached his circle of friends to announce I had gotten into medical school and would start in the fall. He stopped to attention. His friends stood watching. I couldn’t conceal my smile. I thought, “He is going to be so excited for me!”
“Get out now.” …
Leaving medical school for a startup. And with no regrets.
“Write your name on the paper,” he said. Since he was a senior who’d just gotten into medical school, and I was a simple sophomore who’d chosen to attend the session, I did. “Now write Dr. in front of it.” I complied. “If you’re reading that and you don’t feel anything, medicine isn’t for you,” he said. I looked at it again, my name with a Dr. in front of …
I’ve been becoming a doctor for a long time now
As a freshman in college, I helped my aunt with her obstetric appointments to try and see what it meant to be an obstetrician. After her delivery, I asked her OB about her college majors, and she told me she majored in history. The next week, I signed up to start my history minor.
Was that mentorship? No. Granted, having a liberal arts background has been extremely helpful in my medical …
The importance of having mentors in medicine
In just under two months, I will be making two big transitions as I begin life as a resident. The first and obvious change is from student to doctor. The second doesn’t get the same spotlight, but might be just as important: from student to teacher.
Residents play a vital role in medical student teaching. With medical training like an apprenticeship, it is the residents with whom third-year medical students often …
The transition from medical student to teacher
When we got an NIH grant last year to ascertain how teens could get their peers interested in research careers, we did not anticipate turning to Jimmy Kimmel for inspiration.
Kimmel’s “Lie Witness News” segment is notorious for asking unsuspecting pedestrians to share their opinions about ridiculous topics from a new “scented” iPhone to the “appointment” of Judge Judy to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the interviews are purely for amusement, …
Making research careers sound cool, Jimmy Kimmel-style
There she lay: a 59-year old woman who had become increasingly disoriented and confused. Not only did she have an infection in her bloodstream, years of alcohol abuse had taken its toll on her liver, leaving her skin yellowed.
“Welcome to the ICU,” I thought. In contrast to my previous clinical experience, I found this patient encounter unsettling.
No conversation.
No personality.
No interaction.
She was nothing more than a body in a bed punctured …
A medical student, molded by experiences with patients
At a recent block party, neighbors asked me questions about the life of a resident. It amazed me how little the general public still knows about the hours a resident works. Over the years, TV shows have shed some light on what the experience of a resident is like, although none are quite realistic, but it is hard to appreciate from …
Counting 80 hours: The life of a pediatric resident
“Have you had any horrible problems with wait times?” shouted the reporter as he jogged towards the van pulling out of the parking lot.
Leaning in so far that his head actually crossed the window’s threshold yet still audible from across the street, he continued “We’re looking for people who’ve had terrible experiences here!” So it was last week walking in to work at the Durham VA Medical Center.
One year ago, …
Solving the VA patient crisis the right way
We don’t even have to ask, and you certainly don’t need to get out your credentials.
It’s so obvious that you are a medical student.
And it’s not just the short white coat and student identification badge half-hidden in your linen pocket that says it all.
We’ve seen you at all hours around the hospital during your clinical rotations. You tend to appear a half-hour before everyone else, just in time to commandeer …
You’re a medical student. And it’s so obvious why.
While reading the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, I was mesmerized by her insight about the self-perpetuating difficulties women face during their careers; however, something was missing.
Mrs. Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, wrote an enlightening novel about the differences in mindset between the genders and how this hinders women in their career. I found that she was spot on with my experience as a woman pursuing medicine. Like Mrs. …
As an under-represented medical professional: Lean in
How to insert a central line had been drilled into me long before my first attempt, and I was admittedly nervous performing my first procedure as an intern. But, as a senior resident, watching the intern in front of me insert his needle into the patient’s neck was ten times more anxiety-provoking. I wanted to guide him successfully through the first of many procedures he would need to master, in …
Learning to be a teacher on medical rounds
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Every year roughly 400 physicians take their lives: a group of physicians greater than the size of two graduating classes at my medical school. Let’s be clear, physician suicide and medical professional mental health awareness is a neglected issue in medicine. We are twice as likely to commit suicide than our non-physician counterparts. Women physicians are up to three times …
Mental health for medical professionals deserves more attention
Anyone considering attending a Caribbean or any foreign medical school should do due diligence. An Internet search is step one. If the school does not list residency match statistics, that could be a red flag. It would not be easy to accomplish, but try to speak with some current students or recent graduates of any schools you are thinking about.
If the school won’t give you any names, use caution, and …
IMGs matching into surgery: What are the chances?
If the analogy between medical training and a fraternity is true, then medical students are the pledges.
For many, the most grueling part of this pledge process is the third year surgery rotation where the modified Murphy’s Law is applicable almost daily: Anything a medical student can do wrong, a medical student will do wrong.
In a fraternity, pledges can do no right. …
How Murphy’s law applies to medical students
For me, hepatitis B booster shots feel pretty much as pleasant as being sucker punched in the arm. You can imagine that it didn’t inspire much elation when I scrolled through my calendar to see, spelled out in big red letters, a reminder for “Hep B #3.”
Now, as I reflect, this reminder feels like a victory of sorts.
When you are told during medical school orientation that you must be reimmunized for …
Dealing with doubts in medical school
In India, when the first heavy droplets of rain meet dry earth it releases a particular kind of smell: a dampness arising from sizzling soil that in Bengal we call shnoda gondho. It is raining on the second day we go to visit my grandfather in the hospital.
He has been readmitted to the hospital, after spending a week recovering at home from a hospitalization for rib fractures and bleeding into his …
My first experience administering injections involved sitting in an ICU room, ten years old, drinking bitter diet Shasta colas and watching thrillers from the 90s starring Sandra Bullock. The nurses started me on oranges. Easy as pie — I could stab away, practicing insulin injections with saline and fruit. The oranges practically squealed with delight upon puncture, rewarding me with the scent of citrus and a plume of juice — …
My first experience administering injections
It was the boy who was unable to speak who ended up teaching me the most.
I was seeing patients in the epilepsy clinic during my neurology rotation. The attending physician with whom I was working, an internationally renowned pediatric epilepsy specialist with a penchant for attracting exceedingly complex cases, wanted me to observe the end of a patient session with one of the child neurology fellows.
I entered the patient’s room …
Medicine should never be about accepting the status quo
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