Throughout my life, I have been trained by Jesuit institutions. I have loved all of what they have prescribed – to “find God in all things,” to “care for the entire person,” to “be a woman with and for others.” But the most important pillar that I have gained from these educational institutions is to have a reflective mind – the ability to ask why and dig deeper into a …
I have experienced a wide spectrum of the health care ecosystem since childhood giving me a deeper insight into its future need. I suffered for 23 years with a wrong diagnosis and frequent long-distance hospital visits before my heart operation. For 14 years, I shifted through multiple doctors and hospitalizations for my father’s mismanaged diabetic complications, including a foot ulcer with cellulitis. My academic mentor said, “Your father himself is …
“New resident physicians who have earned their MD degrees will be heading to hospitals to start their residencies during the last two week in June and the first week in July. What can a beginning doctor do …
A Black woman whose kidneys only function at 15 percent of normal wishes to be evaluated for a kidney transplant. Although this is very reasonable, before 2021, many physicians would have said, “I’m sorry, but your kidney function is not bad enough to be referred for a transplant.”
This is because the kidney function calculator used before 2021 overestimates kidney function for Black people, making her kidney function seem “too good” …
“It is time that every health profession school specifies their criteria for optimal teaching primary care practices and for the training that would optimize their students’ experience. It is time that we, as primary care physicians, advocate …
The COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted our lives, tilting them into imbalance and oftentimes severing our individual sense of inner peace. The newfound public initiative to combat these paralyzing challenges is welcome, especially to me. I’ve coped with major depression for as long as I can remember.
The grinding pursuit of my own inner peace led me to medical school. Medical training, I expected, would make a healer out of me, able …
If “video killed the radio star” and Zoom squelched the commute, it seems certain that virtual reality and three-dimensional imaging will be the death knell for cadavers.
Recently, NBC Nightly News did a story featuring staff members from Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine using the metaverse and 3D imaging to map out the details of an upcoming complex brain surgery. No matter that the four participants were in different …
International medical school graduates (IMGs) play an integral role in the health care system of the United States and constitute approximately one-quarter of the physician workforce. In 2022, fewer IMGs registered for Match than in 2021, with a match rate of 58.1 percent. The transition to USMLE Step 1 pass/fail, elimination of Step 2 Clinical Science, and implementation of secondary application will likely impact IMGs in their 2023 Match. Here …
“Well, you may think you want to be a surgeon, now that you’re young and think you can do it all, but that will change — once children are in the picture. You’ll see how hard it is to leave them and wish you could be with them all the time.”
As a young female medical student, I seriously considered the physician’s words. I imagined what it would be like to …
I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was seven years old. I excelled in school, attended a good college, scored well on the MCAT, and was accepted into medical school just as I always knew I would be. It was only as I progressed in my career as a physician that I realized that being a white, middle-class individual had given me an advantage—I had access that …
In medical school, we are not just taught the scientific information that doctors should know, we are also taught how doctors should look and behave.
I remember being shown a video on “professionalism” during our first day of orientation. It was meant to be humorous, demonstrating more extreme examples of dress code and behavioral violations.
Medical students walk into exam rooms with their bra straps hanging out.
In 1998, Drs. Tervalon and Murray-Garcia created the concept of “cultural humility” as a way to transcend the prevailing but limiting concept of cultural competence in teaching medical students and trainees how to respectfully deliver health care to the increasingly diverse populations of the U.S. The cultural competence paradigm leads health care professionals to assign patient group traits or labels. On the other hand, cultural humility incorporates a lifelong commitment …
On July 25, 2022, dozens of medical students at the University of Michigan School of Medicine walked out of the school’s White Coat Ceremony when the keynote speaker, Dr. Kristin Collier, an assistant professor of medicine, approached the podium. Dr. Collier is pro-life and has expressed her anti-abortion views in tweets and interviews. She was chosen as keynote speaker by a vote by the university’s Gold Humanism Honor Society. A …
“As I looked across the boxes on my screen, I saw the gleaming faces of my peers. Just as it did then, and as it has for countless of my peers since, involvement in the Student Osteopathic …
I am a second-year medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. In 2018, I graduated from Westwood High School in Austin, Texas. My experience at Westwood was harder than my first year of medical school at UTMB. I wrote this piece to provide some context to students like myself who struggled or are struggling with public school in Texas.
“Nerves ablaze, my voice cracked as I ended my remarks outlining the need for equitable data collection. I leaned towards the screen, adjusted my eyeline to make eye contact, and asked Representative Thomas Suozzi to support The Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure on COVID-19 Act. Representative Suozzi paused for a second, appeared to think over, or perhaps through the points of my argument–and then responded resolutely with, ‘I will cosign …
Medical training has historically been known for its intensity, during which work-life balance is traded in for intensive study sessions and early morning rounds. In recent years, medical schools have become increasingly interested in programs to improve student wellbeing. Many of these programs teach students the importance of wellness, touting the value of exercise, hobbies, and spending time with friends and family without providing the time …
Some day one of my children will likely ask what I once asked my stepfather, “Dad, do you think I should try for med school?” I feel that it will most likely be our inquisitive middle child, Clayton John (“CJ”). And, when that time comes, what will I say to Mr. CJ?
For many physicians in the past, the answer to this question would have been a resounding, …
“The bottom line is that while you can’t predict exactly which MMI prompt you’ll be given, you can absolutely start preparing for the MMI. Become familiar with the format, practice your delivery, start reading about issues in health care, and start thinking about major points to discuss around these issues. While …
“And when we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent, we are still afraid, so it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.”
– Audre Lorde
Like Audre Lorde, I would rather be afraid and speak my truth than choke on my silence. Often, as I navigate my journey through medicine, I feel as though …
