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.
Psychiatry was my first clinical rotation, and I did not know what to expect when I began. When I initially got assigned to the dialectal behavioral therapy (DBT) team, I had no clue what that would entail beyond working with some borderline patients and that the preconception of borderline patients is that they can be “the most difficult” patients to help due to their intense emotional instability, chronic feelings of …
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What a medical student learned during his psychiatry rotation
Health care providers are often uncomfortable discussing issues of religion with patients, despite studies that indicate nearly 9 in 10 Americans believe in some sort of spiritual power. As a medical student, I have noticed that religion plays an important role in many patients’ lives, and that conversations about spirituality can build rapport between doctors and patients.
As the United States becomes increasingly diverse across religious lines, it is imperative for …
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The case for teaching medical students about religion
Benjamin, Jr. was the apple of their eye. He was cute and inquisitive, and smart. Very, very smart. The minute he took his first breath into this world, his mom and dad had already ordained him as a future MD. He would become a doctor and follow in his father’s steps. No questions asked. He would become the second MD in the family. Every birthday, his parties were doctor-themed: kiddie …
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The perfect son. The perfect doctor.
I was a few weeks into my surgery clerkship and was on the tail end of a student call shift. I had been at the hospital for almost 24 hours, and the last thing left to do before I embraced the comfort of my own bed was to round with the faculty surgeon on call that weekend. The night had been busy, but I was prepared to update my attending …
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It’s time to end the medical hierarchy
Dear parents,
Congratulations on your daughter’s acceptance into medical school. Like the first day of kindergarten, this launch is notable for parents as well as children.
You may have some concerns about the stresses she will face. Having been there, I can tell you there will be many. Not to worry, though. Times are changing. You daughter is free to learn among the brightest of the bright while avoiding problems women before …
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Your daughter is going to medical school. Please don’t worry.
July is back, and clinical faculty at teaching hospitals have again braced for the annual deluge of new residents just beginning their specialty training. Unfortunately, our new doctors may be more unprepared than ever.
The gap between medical school (the four years leading to the MD degree) and residency (advanced training in a particular field) has widened over the past several years. Changes in the health care system, shifting patient expectations, …
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New doctors may be more unprepared than ever
Much is made of the date July 1st in the medical profession. Freshly graduated physicians begin their training career in medicine as interns. Although technically physicians, these interns are new to the clinical practice of medicine and all that comes with that. Much has been made of the experience of the new intern. Samuel Shem’s House of God is a renowned novel about medical training. Countless television series, chronicle the …
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On June 30th, I hope we remember the intern within us
As a researcher, there may come a time when you interact with the media. It may make you cringe; for traditional research publications, we have the protection of editing, and feedback from mentors and colleagues. Interviews feel much more risky: Questions are unpredictable, and there is seldom an opportunity to polish the product before it goes into the wild. Yet, interacting with the media offers an opportunity to garner attention …
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10 tips to handle the media as an academic researcher
The USA trains its physicians differently from every other Western country I know. Everyone (with rare exceptions) who goes to medical school first must get a four-year undergraduate college degree in something. There are no such degrees in medicine, although the overwhelming majority of students going on to medical school major in one of the sciences, such as chemistry, biochemistry, and biology. If they don’t major in a science, they generally …
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It’s time to change the way we choose medical students
Your medical school personal statement is one of the most important components of your application. This short essay can be the deciding factor as to whether or not you will spend the remainder of your life practicing medicine.
To be honest, most personal statements will be similar enough that they’ll fit right in with the rest. There will be a handful that stand out above the majority, and if you can …
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Don’t do these 5 things with your medical school personal statement
When I was in high school, I remember being fascinated by the television series House the medical mystery show whose title character was the doctor version of Sherlock Holmes (only with non-existent ethics and a drug problem). Back then, of course, I didn’t have much understanding of the medicine behind the show, but I was impressed by the show’s apparently realistic use of medical terminology and the way it made the …
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How a TV medical drama gave this medical student confidence
“The stethoscope is dying.” That’s the word on the wards.
Clunky and less precise than what modern technological advances allow, many say it will soon find itself useful as only a historical artifact of 19th and 20th-century medicine. While it may pain many clinicians, it’s tough to argue the stethoscope’s immunity to Moore’s law.
As technology allows us to make better, more accurate tools, we embrace them as …
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There is no app for physical diagnosis
After four brutal years of medical school, my colleagues and I finally obtained our medical degrees. As graduation approached, I couldn’t help but reflect on the whole experience, but when I tried discussing the matter with my friends, I discovered that we all had difficulty articulating the precise concoction of emotions we were feeling. Most simply summed up the feeling as “weird.” On graduation eve, however, I found myself in …
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A love letter to my medical school class
In medical school, you learn very quickly that you can’t know everything. By the end of your first-year anatomy course, you’ll probably give up on learning the names of every part of the body, let alone the intricacies of how they function. As physicians, we must grow comfortable with our limitations. We seek help from our colleagues and try not to let our egos get in the way of patient …
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What is the proper way for physicians to be leaders?
I handed her the humungous gardening shears and watched as she snapped through each rib providing access to the silent heart of our cadaver. Abruptly, the fire alarm rang out cutting short the most physically taxing day of our yearlong anatomy lab course. Once we had evacuated, firemen streamed into the building, and I wondered if my lab-mates were also thinking about the horrific scene these men would encounter as …
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The donors were our first patients
On May 11, 2016, we lost another bright, young soul to suicide. Sean Petro was in his third year at the USC Keck School of Medicine and is the third tragedy at his school in the last two years.
On April 23, 2015, we lost Kevin Dietl to suicide just weeks before he was to graduate medical school. Kevin’s parents were so excited to attend their son’s graduation. Instead, they attended …
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Sign this petition to prevent medical student and resident suicides
There was a morning where I felt like the smallest human being on earth. It was a morning spent in the OR, where it seemed like I could do nothing right. I placed the Foley incorrectly on my first attempt, and then ended up removing it incorrectly as well. I nonchalantly brushed past the robot we were using for the case, which was already draped and prepped, and whose sterility I …
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Nothing can cultivate humility like medicine
As a third-year medical student rotating on the internal medicine service at the VA Hospital, I took care of an elderly patient who was suffering from decompensated alcoholic cirrhosis. His condition was complicated by hepatorenal syndrome, multiple electrolyte imbalances, and hepatic encephalopathy.
It was most complicated however by various ethical challenges and by the social and familial factors surrounding this patient’s course of treatment during his one-month stay on our service …
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The swastika-donning patient who refused his lactulose
Charles Bukowski once said, “Wherever the crowd goes, run in the other direction. They’re always wrong.”
How does one become a master? What process do we use to have the highest probability of success? Here are some examples.
“Picasso was an extraordinary craftsman, even when measured against the old masters. That he chose to struggle to overcome his visual heritage in order to find a language more responsive to the modern world …
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What it takes to be a great doctor: Master the fundamentals
