Jay Wong is a medical student. He can be reached at his self-titled site, Jay Wong, and on Twitter @JayWongMedicine.

Ethical humanism: life after #medbikini and an approach to reimagining professionalism

Education
August 9, 2020

So long as you are trying to fit in, you will never feel like you belong.

When the travesty of a “research” publication titled, “Prevalence of Unprofessional Social Media Content Among Young Vascular Surgeons” seemingly metastasized overnight into what will forever be immortalized as the sordid saga that unwittingly catapulted the hashtag #medbikini all across the internet ether, in every way possible this “study” exposed the unsavory truth about the still …

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Ethical humanism: life after #medbikini and an approach to reimagining professionalism

The war on drugs: America’s secret racist war today

Policy
June 8, 2020

When former U.S. President Richard Nixon officially declared his crusade against drugs, notoriously referred to as his so-called “War on Drugs,” on June 17, 1971, America’s police-prison-profit industrial complex could at best prognosticate and at worst balefully pray for the downstream disproportionate impact criminalization of narcotics would have on certain communities from then until now.

If there is one thing that has been made unassailably clear to us in the decades …

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The war on drugs: America’s secret racist war today

You’re outraged by police brutality and racism. OK, now what?

Policy
June 5, 2020

You are outraged. You realize you are part of the problem. You abhor rampant, unchecked police brutality and centuries of systemic, institutionalized racism. It sickens you.

OK, awesome. Now what?

In recent days following the death of George Floyd and the massive uprisings of the American people from all across the country demanding decisive justice and sweeping reform, I couldn’t help but notice a resurgence of a curiously unsettling, but all-too-common phenomenon …

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You’re outraged by police brutality and racism. OK, now what?

George Floyd: Framing police brutality through the lens of an emergent public health crisis

Policy
May 29, 2020

Those who knew George remembered him as “a big man with a heart to match” and a “good friend,” “good person,” and someone who “took care of people.”

Tragically, George Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020.

You may have already seen the heartstrings-shredding video showing his excruciatingly slow and torturously savage homicide. As George struggled in his final moments to simply breathe while begging for his life, and onlookers recording the …

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George Floyd: Framing police brutality through the lens of an emergent public health crisis

When chlamydia became TMI

Conditions
May 15, 2020

“Would an STI cause abdominal pain?” someone in a class discussion asked.

“Well, when I had chlamydia, I didn’t have abdominal pain,” I responded truthfully.

Instantly, the group went silent.

“OK, Jay. That’s … TMI,” someone else in the group quickly retorted with an uncomfortable half-smile.

I shuddered.

Immediately, I felt pressured to usher in some sort of anodyne remark to help dissipate the uneasy cloud that I could feel billowing out around us.

“Haha, I’m …

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When chlamydia became TMI

A vaccine alone will not be enough to recover from the impact of COVID-19: Emotional antibodies against it are needed as well

Conditions
May 12, 2020

I was seven years old when I first got my heart broken. I was swiftly rebuffed by my second-grade crush, Brett who, upon getting gently pecked on the cheek by me one afternoon following recess, grimaced and began aggressively wiping off the invisible remnants of the kiss with the palms of both his hands, swiping vigorously up and down his cheek while shouting in utter disgust, “ew!” in front of …

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A vaccine alone will not be enough to recover from the impact of COVID-19: Emotional antibodies against it are needed as well

How a sojourn atop a mountain in Vietnam changed my life forever

Education
May 8, 2020

As the gentle rumbles of thunder became increasingly sonorous, the sharp crackles of lightning casting out the darkness of night, striking like the angry whips from a scorned martinet, and the torrential rain now cascading down from our awning like loose waterfalls, making heavy splashes around us every few seconds, I could taste the intoxicating smell of petrichor laced with pot in the air. All the while, we …

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How a sojourn atop a mountain in Vietnam changed my life forever

Sex-shaming and sexual physical distancing in the COVID-19 era

Conditions
April 27, 2020

We need to talk about sex.

Yes, sex. And we need to do it now in the context of all this physical distancing.

Recently, hook-up/dating apps all over (e.g., Grindr, Hinge, Tinder) have been using PSA banners and announcements that encourage people to stay home (and alternatively use sexting or camming). I do not mind this. What I do mind, though, are users who are engaging in the latest obnoxious digital trend: …

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Sex-shaming and sexual physical distancing in the COVID-19 era

Unmasked: The untold story behind 1,000+ train rides in Japan and face masks

Conditions
April 20, 2020

If you are ever lucky enough to find yourself jam-packed like a sardine to the point of being unable to take in a deep breath on a train in Tokyo during peak rush-hour traffic, a truly fascinating sight to behold awaits you.

Inside, not only would you be privy to a homogenous landscape of salarymen sporting natty business attire and clutching shiny briefcases, and countless women all decked-out with the latest …

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Unmasked: The untold story behind 1,000+ train rides in Japan and face masks

What 3 years of sitting on Japanese toilets taught me

Conditions
April 19, 2020

The first time I stepped foot in Japan was the summer of 2014. I was a wide-eyed, overzealous sophomore at Yale, all packed and ready to embark on a 2-month journey to Tokyo for a Japanese study abroad program that I only enrolled in so that my language proficiency would be tolerable enough to get my college crush at the time, who is of Japanese descent, to like me.

Pathetic, I …

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What 3 years of sitting on Japanese toilets taught me

What’s in a disease name, anyway? Everything.

Conditions
April 14, 2020

Spanish Flu. Japanese Encephalitis. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. West Nile Virus. Wuhan Virus (and lately, the “Chinese Virus” as many have begun calling the pathogen that causes COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2).

What do these names all have in common, you might ask? Well, for one thing, they were constructed not by a strict scientific nomenclature, but by an aspect of the virus or disease that is inextricably linked to a facet of one’s …

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What’s in a disease name, anyway? Everything.

When a mnemonic becomes dangerous

Conditions
April 9, 2020

Fat.

One tiny word. One voluptuous, full-figured concept.

Several weeks ago, amidst a conversation regarding the risk factors for cholelithiasis (i.e., gallstones) during a chief concern small group session for preclinical students, my preceptor ushered in an aurally convenient yet unsettling mnemonic utilizing alliteration that has apparently been in the works among medical education for a while now, known as “the 4 Fs”: female, fertile, forty, and … fat.

Yes, you read that …

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When a mnemonic becomes dangerous

Try social loving instead of social distancing

Conditions
April 2, 2020

Social distancing.

It is a mantra that seemed to have been plucked straight out of obscurity for those who had never heard of it before just as the coronavirus pandemic dug its ugly claws into the fabric of American life. And since then, it has been perfusing our cultural ether for the last several weeks—aggressively occupying the webpages across the internet, leaping onto the headlines of newspapers, and frequently serving as …

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Try social loving instead of social distancing