July as a newly minted intern: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
The only analogy I can make is you feel like a middle school kid sitting in a PhD course, desperately trying to back-learn everything in a language of acronym alphabet soup you’ve never heard before.
If medical school is drinking from a fire hose, this is trying to sip from Niagara Falls. You have …
Reflecting on the first month as a new physician
You’ve changed.
No longer do we see you sluggishly walking en route to work every morning with refillable coffee thermos in one hand, robotically scanning some kind of social media feed with the other.
We are concerned that the regular and cyclic day time group texts received from you are now occurring at odd hours of the night. Your persistence to move …
Working the night shift as a resident physician
I’m a second-year medical student, and quite recently, a lecture left me with serious doubts about the state of social awareness in the medical field and schools. The dermatologist lecturing described a patient with secondary syphilis, stating he felt the case was odd since, “He [the patient] didn’t look gay or anything,” as if only homosexual men could contract that disease.
I was hurt. I not only belong to a racial …
A lack of social education in medical schools today
As a medical student, it’s difficult to face a situation where everything possible is done for a patient, yet due to circumstances (seemingly) beyond our control, the risk of future harm remains uncomfortably certain. The majority of our medical school learning focuses on how to cure illness; unfortunately we’re not always taught how to deal with the real world issues that face our patients and that threaten the medicine we …
Why the diversity of medical students is important
This time of year I get a lot of questions from fourth-year medical students about applying to residency. So, here’s my answer to the question, “What should I look for in a good family medicine (FM) residency program?”
It’s FM, so everyone (for the most part) is going to be nice, friendly, and welcoming when you go to visit. They will show you a curriculum that’s in line with the Accreditation …
3 questions to ask prospective family medicine residencies
Let me begin with by extending a hearty congratulation on matriculating to medical school. The pre-med years were tough with organic chemistry, staying involved with leadership activities, chasing down the elusive letter of recommendation, and sitting for the MCAT.
But you did it.
Be proud of what you’ve accomplished because you’re one step closer to becoming a doctor.
You may have fears, concerns or misgivings about what is coming your way and this …
How to survive your first year of medical school
Having been both a nurse and a doctor, most of the questions I get from readers have to do with making the decision between nursing and medicine. Let’s lay aside for a moment the reality that the fields are totally different and that direct comparisons are useless.
But people ask me all the time, so, as a little experiment, I …
Choose your career: Should I be a nurse or a doctor?
An excerpt from Suicide Med.
“I wish I had become a ballet dancer instead.”
I use the back of my forearm to swipe at strands of dark hair that have come loose from the tight bun at the back of my head. The attempt fails and the escaped locks fall back …
Suicide Med: A medical school thriller
I recently read an interesting article in Glamour about why Zosia Mamet, an actress on HBO’s Girls, refuses to “lean in.” While the column focuses on the influence of modern-day feminism on notions of professional success, her words resonated with me as a medical student and an aspiring psychiatrist.
“I have been incredibly blessed with success in my chosen career. I’ve worked my a** off and had the support and encouragement …
Can medical students lean in to psychiatry?
Since joining my current practice two years ago, I’ve noticed that I care for a disproportionate number of immigrants of Chinese and other Asian descent compared to my colleagues. Although both of my parents were born in Taiwan, I don’t speak Mandarin or have special expertise on medical conditions common in Asian Americans. Nonetheless, Asian patients seem more comfortable with me anyway. Similarly, U.S. health workforce analyses show that underrepresented …
America’s need for a diverse generation of family physicians
I recently read some statistics that shocked me, but not really. In the U.S., 60% of medical students come from families with incomes in the top 20% of the nation. Meanwhile, only 3% come from families with incomes in the lowest 20%. Not much socioeconomic diversity in the house of medicine.
Now, I realized early on that I didn’t have a lot of company in this respect, but I didn’t think …
The lack of socioeconomic diversity in medicine
Dear Jane:
Thank you for asking me about my perspectives on medical school. Here are some general principles that you might find useful in your own training:
1. View everyone as your teacher. Everyone you encounter will teach you something. Be open to what they have to offer.
Yes, your professors and attendings, the “official” teachers, will educate you. Patients, however, will often be your best teachers. Listen to what they say, watch how …
6 guiding principles as you enter medical school
Most physicians recall the medical school ritual of unboxing our first stethoscope. From the first physical diagnosis course, we were all solemnly instructed as to the importance of the physical examination in the diagnosis and of management of illness. Given that perhaps the most notable use of the stethoscope is cardiac auscultation, it would seem that this should hold particularly true for cardiology.
And yet, on moving from classroom to bedside, …
Cost-effective diagnosis was the only option
ADVERTISEMENT
A new study poses one of the most vexing ethical questions concerning research with human beings: When is it acceptable to conduct research without the consent of the research subject?
In emergency situations, patients often arrive at the hospital unconscious or with severely impaired decision-making capacity. Progress in medical practice depends on results from carefully designed research; yet in these emergency cases such patients are unable to fulfill one of the …
Conducting research without the consent of the research subject
My path to medicine is tied to my family’s experience with poverty, and with the profound economic fallout a major illness can bring in such circumstances. I grew up on the Couer d’Alene reservation in Northern Idaho. My mother was a single parent who had to rely on government assistance to raise three children in subsidized housing. As the eldest, I was expected to help care for my younger siblings …
Medicine is an inaccessible career choice for Native Americans
When I started medical school, a wise professor likened the amount of new information I was about to learn to trying to drink water from a fire hose. It didn’t take long until I understood exactly what he meant. After sitting through the seemingly endless hours of lecture, lab and small group sessions required in the first two years of medical school, my head was spinning from information overload. The …
Are we training medical students to be high-quality health care providers?
My business ethics class recently discussed the case of Cipla Pharmaceuticals, an Indian generic drug manufacturer drawing the ire of big pharma by blithely ignoring international patents or employing workarounds to manufacture low-cost generics in direct violation of the patents. Cipla’s founder, Dr. Yusuf Hamied, stressed that Cipla’s goal wasn’t to steal from the bottom line of the likes of Merck and Eli Lilly, but rather to serve its mission …
The divergent languages of business and medicine
My father who was a junior doctor in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in the seventies would have been grateful for the match scheme, an algorithm that places medical students in residency programs in the U.S. The training in the NHS was unstructured. Physicians carved their own training by joining a patchwork of hospital positions in disparate places.
Over a few years we lived in Yorkshire, East Anglia, Wales, East London …
The Match: A testament to the genius of central planning
Recently, I was on call for surgery at a hospital in New York City. At 2 a.m. in the morning, we were paged to a trauma in the ED. After we stabilized the patient and moved him for CT scans and x-rays, I noticed a small stretcher tucked away in the back part of the ED, a place typically reserved for overflow patients when we run out of rooms.
The patient …
A medical student speaks up and saves a life
There is a tremendous amount of handwringing among students, workforce researchers, and medical school deans about the record amount of debt that medical students incur — more than $175,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. This has unintended consequences, including student selection of more lucrative specialties and placing medical education beyond the reach of low-income and minority students. The average …
5 sensible ways to decrease medical school debt
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
