An excerpt from The Premed Paradox. As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of…
As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of the lidocaine vial, and snapped off the top as required. To my absolute shock, I immediately felt the glass tip of the vial penetrate both gauze padding and sterile glove, …
Intro My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this "about to become a doctor" and his mother, "a…
Intro
My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this “about to become a doctor” and his mother, “a long-time doctor,” to have a conversation about the journey. I realize now after transcribing and editing our conversations that this was much more than my life as a pediatrician; it was …
Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know. For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences.…
Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know.
For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences. Build clinical knowledge upon that foundation. Then provide supervised clinical experience until the student becomes capable of practicing medicine. That model has served medicine extraordinarily well.
Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don't write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can't be written by just anyone. They have to…
Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don’t write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can’t be written by just anyone. They have to come from a clinician with the credentials to back up what’s being taught.
That’s a standing demand for physician expertise. Most physicians have no idea they qualify.
"Don't tell my parents," Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. "But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian." It was the usual…
“Don’t tell my parents,” Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. “But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian.”
It was the usual scene at a Nepali party. Women were dressed in the latest fashionable saris. Men, at different levels of intoxication, were huddled around laughing at a story. Loud Nepali music blared while …
A resident read a student's personal statement and asked why she didn't just use ChatGPT. The comment landed like a wound. In this episode, certified coach and professor Kathleen Muldoon returns to unpack what a residency personal statement is actually…
A resident read a student’s personal statement and asked why she didn’t just use ChatGPT. The comment landed like a wound. In this episode, certified coach and professor Kathleen Muldoon returns to unpack what a residency personal statement is actually for, and why an algorithm can’t do it for you. This …
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.
"It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life." The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though,…
“It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life.”
The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though, was how long and how memorably physicians carried it.
Like many students, I came to medicine with the belief that progress meant getting closer to certainty. Having seen organ trafficking firsthand, I …
An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole? Many students believe taking…
An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole?
Many students believe taking a gap year improves their admission chances. While compounding variables prevent conclusive proof that a gap year directly helps, the extra time is understandably attractive, as it allows students to improve …
"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.
Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set? Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question.…
Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set?
Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question. USMLE Step 1 is now reported as pass/fail, removing its score variations as a screening variable. USMLE Step 3 scores are rarely available at the time of application, since most applicants …
Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to…
Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to confront supervision, authorship, and institutional accountability. The lesson was not simply that one researcher failed. The institution and research system also need safeguards.
Four decades later, the Retraction Watch leaderboard of …
Research retractions are not all misconduct, and a leaderboard is not a verdict. The Retraction Watch database leaderboard, updated August 2026, shows researchers with dozens or hundreds of retractions but also cautions that its ranking is unofficial and shaped by…
Research retractions are not all misconduct, and a leaderboard is not a verdict. The Retraction Watch database leaderboard, updated August 2026, shows researchers with dozens or hundreds of retractions but also cautions that its ranking is unofficial and shaped by what can be verified. Its treatment of the landmark 1980s case involving a Harvard University cardiologist illustrates why raw counts require context. Nonetheless, these cases expose recurring vulnerabilities that every …
"Academia produces knowledge brilliantly. It distributes it appallingly," Professor Dorina Buda wrote recently on LinkedIn. The statement made me pause because it brought back two experiences from nearly a decade apart. Both involved the same molecule, peroxynitrite, a peroxy isomer…
The statement made me pause because it brought back two experiences from nearly a decade apart. Both involved the same molecule, peroxynitrite, a peroxy isomer of nitrate. The first occurred when I knew virtually nothing about patents. The second came after I had worked as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office …
The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient's life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor's…
The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient’s life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor’s hands resting on her abdomen.
Like my peers at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, I have spent years learning the language of modern medicine: lab values, imaging findings, differential …
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America's health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black…
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America’s health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black physicians, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, and biomedical scientists. At a time when the United States faces physician shortages, widening health disparities, and declining access to care in underserved communities, …
It was almost midnight, and I was staring at the word oxybutynin like it had personally wronged me. I had seen it maybe twenty times that week. Flashcard, missed. Practice question, missed. I knew it treated something with the bladder,…
It was almost midnight, and I was staring at the word oxybutynin like it had personally wronged me.
I had seen it maybe twenty times that week. Flashcard, missed. Practice question, missed. I knew it treated something with the bladder, I think, and that it blocked some receptor, and past that, my brain just went quiet. Around me, the library was clearing out. I had two hundred more drugs to learn, …
Everything medical schools believe about us seems wrong. Medical schools call us "Native American," but many of us dislike this word. The traditional among us refuse this colonial branding with every fiber of our being. Yet many people believe the…
Everything medical schools believe about us seems wrong. Medical schools call us “Native American,” but many of us dislike this word. The traditional among us refuse this colonial branding with every fiber of our being. Yet many people believe the media that says “Indian” is offensive and so they call us “Native American.” Ask yourself: Would a Ukrainian mother ever call herself Native Russian? Would a Palestinian man ever call …
Artificial intelligence has been part of conversations about the future of medicine for years. As a medical student, I have heard about its potential in lectures, read about its development in health care, and watched discussions about how it may…
Artificial intelligence has been part of conversations about the future of medicine for years. As a medical student, I have heard about its potential in lectures, read about its development in health care, and watched discussions about how it may change the way physicians practice. For a long time, though, it felt like something that would arrive later, after I had already learned how to be a doctor.
Like many doctors, I was initially skeptical about artificial intelligence (AI). As a retired Australian anesthetist, I had spent decades relying on clinical experience, scientific evidence, and professional judgment. I never imagined that one of the most useful health education…
Like many doctors, I was initially skeptical about artificial intelligence (AI). As a retired Australian anesthetist, I had spent decades relying on clinical experience, scientific evidence, and professional judgment. I never imagined that one of the most useful health education tools I would encounter would be a mobile phone.
In 2024, I was living with obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and gastric reflux. Like many people, I accepted these …
