Students, educators, and physicians writing on KevinMD about medical school: admissions and what they select for, the cost of tuition and the debt it leaves, the curriculum and what students say it does and does not teach, Step 1 and the test-prep industry, pass/fail, mistreatment and depression in training, the match, Caribbean schools, and what should change. Most contributors are students writing while still in school, many of them anonymously. For what physicians have said about paying off that debt and the money decisions that follow, see Physician personal finance: what physicians say about their own money, in their own words. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school on KevinMD since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians and deans have said for and against affirmative action and diversity in admissions, see Race and medicine: what physicians say, in their own words. For what international and Caribbean graduates have said about the Match and visas, see Immigration and medicine: what physicians say about immigrant doctors and immigrant patients, in their own words.
Last month on February 3, 2019, we celebrated National Women Physician’s Day (NWPD). Created in 2016 by the Physician Mom Group (PMG) in collaboration with Physicians Working Together (PWT) and Medelita, NWPD honors the first female physician in the U.S., Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and highlights gender inequality in medicine. The day is a social media “holiday” of sorts, with timelines flooded with inspirational posts of women in white coats declaring …
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Celebrating Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first African American female physician in the United States
Back when I was a third-year medical student, I would sometimes bike to the hospital campus early enough to catch the groundskeepers cleaning the promenade in front of the medical school before the foot traffic arrived. Discovery Walk, as it’s called, is a beautiful promenade with stone murals commemorating the significant discoveries made at Stanford. It’s a beautiful scene, especially during sunrise or sunset, which many of my classmates have …
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The difference between learning medicine and doing medicine
As our society’s awareness of mental-health issues increases, the idea of balancing personal and professional life has become a central topic of conversation. It cannot be disputed that finding a healthy equilibrium is especially important for mothers who enter the professional world, medical or otherwise. As a student in an accelerated post-baccalaureate pre-health program and a mother of a 3-year-old girl and a 10-month-old boy, I have made many strides …
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Does work-life balance really exist for young mothers pursuing medical careers?
I met Mr. B during my week on the endocrine service of my internal medicine rotation. My attending told me we were being consulted for this patient’s high sugars and a foot ulcer, and asked me to take the history.
I walked into Mr. B’s room and was immediately struck by its stench. Mr. B had undergone a resection of his bladder tumor the day before and as a result was …
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The hidden curriculum of medical school can be overwhelming and unforgiving
Well, today it happened. I participated in my first code.
We were in the telemetry unit (the room where they monitor all the patients who have EKG strips) to ask about a different patient of mine only to find that a patient was coding (lost a life-sustaining heartbeat). With some coaxing from my attending, the other student and I wound our way through the around-20 people standing outside and inside of …
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A medical student’s first code. Here’s what he learned.
“We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded … Only later when the cloth is untied can we glance at the past and find out what we have experienced and what meaning it has.”
– Milan Kundera
Two days ago, during a clinical skills session on lymph node examination, my classmates insisted that I get what appeared to be an enlarged lymph node in my neck checked by the physician …
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Remove your blindfold to your patient’s pain
A simple Google search is all you need to do to gauge the difficulty individuals have with asking for help.
“How to ask to shadow someone.” 43.1 million results.
“How to ask for a letter of recommendation.” 66 million results.
“How to ask for help,” 3.73 billion results.
From the popularity of these topics, it is evident that people have a hard time reaching out and balancing coming across respectfully, but still receiving a …
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A key tip for premedical students: Ask for help
In my first year of medical school, I attended a lecture on health disparities that focused on the difference in patient outcomes based on race and socioeconomic status. The lecture cited multiple peer-reviewed studies that extensively demonstrated these disparities and how health care professionals, not solely social determinants of health, contribute to them. The lecture concluded with an appeal to improve our cultural awareness and acknowledge our conscious and unconscious …
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Respect the duty to care for all patients equitably
If you are in the same boat as I and aspiring to become a physician, you are likely in the process of compiling an application for medical school. If you are like me, then one of the most intimidating parts of the application process is the personal statement segment of the American Medical College Application Service. It is increasingly difficult to stand out in the medical school application pool, as …
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The medical school personal statement struggle
Let’s talk about that infamous transition to third year. This is a precarious time in your medical school career when your resolve faces its greatest challenge yet. After weeks of self-imposed exile to prepare for Step 1, you finally take that dreaded exam. Before you even know whether or not you’ve passed, you and your colleagues scattered to the far corners of the earth to begin clinical rotations.
But hey — …
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Millennials: This is our time in medicine
As medical students, we are asked to learn in exquisite detail the ins and outs of rare diseases that we may never encounter in clinical practice. Yet the education we receive on caring for a population numbering in the millions is sorely lacking, and the health of those patients — the members of our communities identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or as another sexual or gender minority — is …
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America’s inadequate LGBTQ medical education
According to the NASEM report, half of women medical students experience sexual harassment before they start their careers as physicians. The numbers are even higher for people belonging to minority groups. This harassment is generally overlooked and tolerated, and as injurious as it can be, these women often have to suck it up, keep it moving, and accept it as “part of …
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A student doctor says, “Time’s Up”
The United States will be short 120,000 doctors by the end of next decade, according to the latest research from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
That shortage will become permanent unless medical schools make the path to becoming a doctor a bit less arduous.
Some medical schools seem to take pride in imposing a heavy emotional and physical toll on their students. Toughen up aspiring doctors early on, the thinking goes, …
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Medical schools need to cut their cutthroat culture
Based on my clinical experiences, there are ten pieces of advice I would give to any medical student starting their rotations that will maximize productivity and lead to a robust and thriving work environment (your interns will thank you).
1. Do as complete of a workup on your assigned patients as you can. Be thorough with your admission H&P. Think of all the tests, labs and imaging studies you want ordered. …
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How a medical student can help the team during clinical rotations
During the recent winter break, I went home and visited my yearly slew of doctors for check-ups: vision, dental, gynecology, etc. In the exam room, my new gynecologist instructed me to put my feet up in the stirrups. I had recently learned in a seminar at school that new guidelines on Pap smears suggest spacing them every three years for women at my age, and I wondered, “Do I even …
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The culture of permission in medicine
Think all the way back to your grade school years. Did you know that your personality traits were starting to be honed for the work you do today? Let me give you some examples about myself and see if you can relate.
I remember the praise and exhilaration of being the only kid in the class to get a 100 percent on an extremely difficult second-grade spelling test. My teacher told …
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The hidden curriculum of medicine
After teaching biology and nutrition for three years, I began my journey back to my original dream: a career in medicine. The most common sense approach to me was to return back to college and start taking the necessary pre-requisites to apply for medical school. My original major in college begin special education, I had no previous college-level science background, so I began taking introductory biology and chemistry at a …
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The post-baccalaureate pre-health program experience
From the beginning of medical school, one of the first things “instructional videos” that we had to watch during orientation was about “social media” and what “not to do.” There began this stigma, and it was frowned upon to use social media if you were a clinician.
There are the obvious things that physicians should not do, such as post private information about patients, show a patient’s face without their permission, …
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A call to clinicians: Contrary to what you’ve been taught, use social media
The most important piece of advice I can give to incoming medical students is to be vigilant about how you are feeling day-to-day and to be aware of your actions. As is often said, our personalities, the distinctive makeup that makes us who we are, are set in stone. If you are a mindful person, you’ll stay that way even as you get older. If you are someone who likes …
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Why medical students should develop and increase self-awareness
