I grabbed a few beach pillows, put on my old worn-out blue beach button down, poured myself a glass of whiskey and walked down to the beach from our villa to watch the sunset. My four friends and I were ten days deep into a two-week vacation. We had already toured Seoul, South Korea for three days, Tokyo, Japan for four days and Hong Kong for three days. So, I …
No matter where you are, you’re still a doctor
I was recently interviewed on a podcast and was asked the simple question, “Why are you in medicine?” In retrospect, that’s the exact question I silently ask myself in frustration and exhaustion a little bit too often while I’m in the hospital. In those moments I recognize that I feel burnt out. In those moments if someone told me that I had to repeat intern year in order to finish …
The only thing I love more than complaining about being a doctor is actually being a doctor. Intern year sucks. There’s no way around it. I wake up at 5:15 a.m. to get to the floor at 6:00 a.m. and I rarely leave at 5:00 p.m. when my shift is scheduled to end assuming I’m not on call until 9:00 p.m.
I often feel my stomach growl at 9:00 a.m. and …
The worst thing about being an internal medicine intern
As a fourth-year medical student in a sub-internship in internal medicine, I have something that no doctor in America has. I have as much time as I want to spend with my patients. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a student. I’m still paying hospitals to let me be there, and I only have a maximum of four patients per day, but I inevitably end up spending more time …
When will we start taking mental health seriously?
I’m thankful that my first rotation was family medicine out in Youngstown, Ohio. Youngstown is a small town halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Everything moves a little slower out there compared to what I’m used to in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Similarly, my family medicine rotation as a whole was slower and calmer compared to my other rotations. I didn’t see any emergency conditions or an excessive number of rare pathologies …
Doctors: Now is the time to develop your style with patients
With my third year of medical school coming to a close, here is what I wish I did differently, wish I knew beforehand or figured out along the way during my core clinical rotations. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and you may have heard this before, but it can’t hurt to hear it from someone else.
Hold yourself accountable for the welfare of your …
After third year: What a medical student wishes he did differently
As I walked home last night I glanced up at the evening sky of Dominica. Twinkling down at me was what seemed like a surprisingly bright star compared to all the rest. It couldn’t be a plane because planes very rarely fly over this Caribbean island. It seemed to be stationary so it couldn’t be a meteor. Confused, I pulled out the sky map on my iPhone and discovered it was …
Rekindling a medical student’s passion for medicine
I sit at my home in New Jersey as I anxiously await my 6am flight two days from now that will take me to the Caribbean island of Dominica where I will begin to take my first steps in the journey of becoming a doctor at Ross University School of Medicine.
Many people attempted to discourage me from continuing on the path I started on. Doctors I shadowed would warn me …
Pre-meds: Do what it takes to get into medical school
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