Shaan R. Mody

Shaan R. Mody is a medical student.

August 30, 2026Aug 30, 2026

I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone. What surprised me was not the number of infographics…

I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone.

What surprised me was not the number of infographics available. It was how difficult it had become to determine who created them, where the information came from, or whether the content had been reviewed by anyone with medical expertise.

In the …

Education

Why blaming doctors makes patients less safe

Shaan R. Mody

August 23, 2026Aug 23, 2026

"People aren't the problem. The problem is the problem." I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn't know then that I…

“People aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem.” I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn’t know then that I was about to spend the rest of my medical training inside an institution that had reached the exact same conclusion decades earlier, and then largely failed to live by it.

In …

Conditions

Measles complications can hide in the brain

Shaan R. Mody

July 23, 2026Jul 23, 2026

The child is already well by the time the virus settles in. The fever broke. The rash faded. The parents exhaled. Life moved forward: first steps, first words, first day of school. In a small number of children, though, the…

The child is already well by the time the virus settles in.

The fever broke. The rash faded. The parents exhaled. Life moved forward: first steps, first words, first day of school. In a small number of children, though, the measles virus does not leave. It retreats inward, past the bloodstream, past the immune system’s reach, and takes up residence in the brain. Quietly. Without announcement. It waits there, sometimes for …

Conditions

We can rewrite DNA but not deliver it in time

Shaan R. Mody

July 15, 2026Jul 15, 2026

She was seven months old when her parents first noticed it. Not the peaceful stillness of sleep, but something heavier. Her arms, which had once reached for hanging toys, had grown quiet. Her head, once held with the wobbly determination of a healthy infant, began to drift. The milestones that seemed to be arriving suddenly began moving in reverse.

Weeks later, a child neurologist delivered the diagnosis: spinal muscular atrophy type …

Education

Why complex chronic illness slips through the cracks

Shaan R. Mody

July 11, 2026Jul 11, 2026

He has been tired for eight months. Not the tiredness that follows a bad night of sleep, a hard week, or a season of stress. The kind that just does not lift. The kind that is still there after the weekend, after the vacation, after every reasonable explanation has been tried and discarded. He also has a cough that will not quit, something happening with his nails, unrelenting brain fog, …

Conditions

The child neurologist shortage is a policy choice

Shaan R. Mody

July 10, 2026Jul 10, 2026

A mother calls a neurologist's office the morning after watching her daughter seize in her sleep. She calls as soon as the office opens, explains exactly what happened, and waits for guidance. The earliest appointment is three months away. That…

A mother calls a neurologist’s office the morning after watching her daughter seize in her sleep. She calls as soon as the office opens, explains exactly what happened, and waits for guidance. The earliest appointment is three months away. That is not a worst-case scenario. It is routine.

This is what the child neurology shortage actually looks like. It does not arrive as a headline. It arrives as hold music. It …

Education

Why don’t we teach health literacy like driver’s ed?

Shaan R. Mody

June 28, 2026Jun 28, 2026

At some point, you will sit in a waiting room and not know what to say. You will be handed a form asking about your symptoms and realize you cannot describe them precisely enough to feel useful. A physician will ask how long this has been going on, and you will wish you had written it down. You will leave with instructions you mostly understood, a follow-up you are not …