A medical student as a patient. She thanks her support systems.

Education
November 26, 2018

Two weeks ago, while I was helping with an emergency medicine course that I’m a teaching assistant for, I started feeling extremely light-headed, and the chest tightness that I had dismissed as heartburn earlier that morning got worse. I was tended to by the emergency medicine doctor who I was teaching with, admitted to the ED with a resting pulse rate of 130 beats per minute, later admitted to the …

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A medical student as a patient. She thanks her support systems.

How medical school saved this student’s life

Education
October 9, 2018

Note: This article contains language about physical assault that could be upsetting to some readers.

Stanford Medical School saved my life. Not in the metaphorical way, but in a very literal way. If I didn’t start medical school when I did, there is a high chance I wouldn’t be alive today.

I struggled writing this piece because only a small handful of people know my story. By the time you’re done reading …

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How medical school saved this student’s life

Becoming a doctor is the epitome of delayed gratification

Education
June 19, 2018

Recently, I had the honor of standing by one of my childhood best friends as she promised the love of her life that she’d stand by him forever. The wedding was beautiful, and at the reception, I played with another close friend’s 3-year-old daughter and talked with other friends about their work promotions and apartment searches. All I have to contribute to these conversations are anecdotes about medical school and …

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Becoming a doctor is the epitome of delayed gratification

A medical student’s reflection on time, the scarcest resource

Education
May 17, 2018

One of the best bits of wisdom I’ve ever received is that you can tell a lot about someone by looking at how they spend their time. In medical school, time is our scarcest resource. We’re at this strange and exciting point in our lives, during which we’re responsible for learning an enormous amount of information in hopes that someday we’ll be able to quite literally save lives.

Many of my …

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A medical student’s reflection on time, the scarcest resource

3 pieces of advice to new medical students

Education
August 7, 2017

Congratulations on your acceptance to medical school! Wherever you’re starting this fall, know that you’re joining a “cult” of health care professionals and health care professionals-to-be. No matter how little you know, you’ll be asked for medical advice. And the more you learn, the less likely you’ll be able to sit through an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” without picking out the make believe. We’re right there with you.

Medical school is a …

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3 pieces of advice to new medical students

A medical student stops going to class. See what happens next.

Education
June 9, 2017

This quarter, during the block of our human health and disease course dedicated to learning about the pulmonary system, I conducted one of the scariest “academic experiments” of my life: I stopped going to class.

What did she do with all that free time? one might be wondering. Instead of spending hours every week watching the lectures I missed going to in person and reading textbooks (I saved all of that …

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A medical student stops going to class. See what happens next.

Never forget a donor’s humanity

Education
February 2, 2017

Back in September, an Inside Stanford Medicine article featured my first-year medical school class on our first day of anatomy. It spoke of learning anatomy and having the privilege to work on real donors’ bodies as a “rite of passage,” something all medical students must do to really discover the human body.

We were all very excited, yet timid, on that first day of anatomy class, I remember. Afraid …

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Never forget a donor’s humanity

Doctors should take care of teddy bears too

Education
November 25, 2016

I’m a first-year medical student who recently discovered the magnetic pull of surgery.

As one might assume, on my first day scrubbing into the OR under a pediatric surgeon, I was beyond excited. The surgeon’s precision and expertise fascinated me, and the constant activity in the surgical suite was something I could definitely get used to. Adrenaline was as pervasive as anesthesia in the OR, and I knew I’d thrive there.

However, …

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Doctors should take care of teddy bears too