Popular shows like Gray’s Anatomy, ER, and House, MD have given the television watching public a good eyeful when it comes to the inner workings of medicine, hospitals, and emergency rooms. They have also shown us how the personalities of those who take up the stethoscope and reflex hammer run the gamut from the sweet, demure, tentative types to the sons of bitches who cut first and ask questions later.
I …
The stories of my medical school mentors
As a fourth-year medical student, I love introducing myself to patients as the “extra eyes and ears of the team, so feel free to tell me anything you forgot or would like to address, even if you think it’s irrelevant or burdensome. I will be your advocate.”
As I establish rapport with them, the walls come down, and they often provide important information that helps my team provide the best care …
The inspiring reasons why this medical student wanted to become a doctor
Aristotle said, “To avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
Sometimes I wish I was nothing; surely, that would just be so much easier. I screw up all of the time. And I hate it. My latest gaffe was killing our simulated patient by causing him to aspirate. I’m sure no one in my group is still persevering on the events that unfolded during the sim. I also really …
It’s OK for medical students to make mistakes. Here’s why.
There’s a window in the driveway to the dental school that always catches my attention. Usually, the old, horizontal blinds are hanging at a lopsided, half-open-half-closed stance. Occasionally, though, they are open all the way, and you can see inside.
For the first few months of my dental school education, I felt like that was my only window into dentistry: through the obstructed, double-paned division between me and the dental school …
A case for the integration of medicine and dentistry
Readers know that I believe that servant leadership should inform leadership and management decisions. We who have the privilege of having leadership positions at medical schools, therefore, have as a primary responsibility to our students.
Being a medical student, while a reward and a privilege, is nonetheless a stressful experience. The first two years at most U.S. medical schools have the students grinding through the basic sciences related to medicine. The volume …
Medical schools owe their students more
Every year around Match Day, medical and pre-med students alike worry about a rumored “residency cliff.” The theory is that the number of new medical school graduates will soon outstrip the existing inventory of residency positions, and the overflow applicants will be left in professional limbo.
While that picture seems scary, it’s time for some good news. I’ve believed for years that this concern is more phantom than real, but now …
U.S. medical school graduates aren’t enough to fill the physician shortage
I’ll just start this off by saying that I am not exactly sure where I stand on the white coat thing. One part of me loves the white coat as a symbol, a shield against disease, and a place with pockets to put my things; and then there are other days when I just want to throw that germ-ridden cotton barrier to the doctor-patient relationship in the trash, roll up my sleeves, …
The white coat doesn’t mean much anymore
Dear future self,
Remember that day on surgery you stepped into the OR for the first time? How you had no idea you were supposed to pull your own gloves for the scrub nurse from the supplies cabinet, or that you needed to stand an arm’s length away from the equipment table to avoid breaking sterility? Remember how scared you felt? How clumsy you were when you scrubbed in, in a …
Residents should pay it forward to medical students
I start this article with a disclaimer: I am not here to comment on the decreasing salaries of physicians or the knowledge that I will never get paid the way the prior generation of doctors got paid. It is hard for me (and the American public) to feel bad for anybody making more than $200,000 a year when the median household income is in the mid-$40,000 range.
What this article is …
The absurd cost of becoming a doctor
When you enter medical school, you have this very esteemed white coat ceremony. It’s a memorable occasion, where speakers tell newbie medical students and their families all that it means to wear such a coat: the responsibility, the ethical code, the professionalism, the compassion all intertwined to make up the very fabric of each emblemed cape.
My coat was part of my dilemma. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be all the …
The key to physician happiness: Be you as a doctor
Despite convincing results for many health care interventions, translating evidence from research into clinical practice is often challenging. Implementation barriers are myriad and complex, but a number may arise from core design issues. While real-world environments are clearly vital to the success of any intervention, many traditional research efforts are structured to remove them from the proverbial equation.
In studying the impact of a new medication, for instance, a group might …
The challenge of translating research to clinical practice
Critics have been making the rounds again with a warmed-over complaint: International medical schools that offer U.S. teaching hospitals financial support for clerkship programs are unfairly buying access for their students instead of “more deserving” U.S.-based students. As the proud dean of a Caribbean medical school, I want to set the record straight yet again: This argument is hollow and based on a false dichotomy. In fact, the argument has …
Why paying hospitals for clerkships is good, and necessary
“Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.”
– Sir William Osler, “The Father of Modern Medicine” (1849–1919)
In this modern era of oncology, the potential extent of malignant spread is staged by high-quality scans. Further, when …
Learn the physical exam by following an oncologist
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How do you learn to be a good doctor? Sure, you study anatomy, and make flashcards, and memorize nerve pathways, but what makes someone a good doctor is the way they apply all that knowledge to real patients with compassion and diagnostic expertise. Strong “doctoring” skills, like listening carefully, taking a comprehensive history, explaining medication and treatment options clearly and patiently, and writing notes that colleagues can understand, are what …
An objective national standard for clinical skills is critical. Here’s why.
His eyes were as wide open as his mouth as he slowly placed his beer on the bar without looking away from me. Making no effort to wipe the thick foam from his upper lip, the man continued to stare in disbelief, “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The thirty-something C-something-O was blown away by what I did for work. By this time a small crowd had gathered, standing in …
Stop telling younger generations not to become doctors
Fidgeting in my seat, I waited nervously in one of the most crowded waiting rooms I had ever been in. Suddenly, I felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped down my back; my legal name was being called over the dozens of waiting room sniffles. My instinct was to remain glued to my seat, not to let anyone know that I was the person attached to that …
Transgender and gender non-conforming health: What you need to know #PushforPronouns
The family medicine fellow set down her pen and inhaled deeply. “So when is it OK to cry with a patient?” she asked the senior attending across the table, a veteran internist in her mid-60s.
About a dozen of us — fellows, physicians, writers — sat hunched over a paper- and laptop-strewn table in the fellows’ shared office, talking about a poem: Sharon Olds’ “Death of Marilyn Monroe.” In it, Olds …
Medical education needs literature. Here’s why.
These are the words that inspired me to begin my journey as a medical student blogger. Four years later and I’m still at it! The time has flown since I received my acceptance letter to now, only a few weeks away from my graduation. And as graduation approaches and I make the transition from student to resident, I can’t help but ask myself, how am I doing? How is my first patient really doing?
It’s a difficult question …
The abandoned retractor clatters dangerously close to the other edge of the sterile field, saved only by the quick reflexes of the scrub nurse. The attending lets out a brief laugh, “I guess we’re using the Madagascar technique,” then it’s back to the operation at hand. Minutes pass as I continue to stand in my assigned place at the attending’s side, prepared to offer whatever meager contribution I can to …
The racism in medical education cannot be ignored
It was recently Match Day.
At 12 noon EST, medical students all over the United States simultaneously opened envelopes which revealed the destination of their residency training. The tradition is an exhilarating and emotional event for everyone involved. For medical students, it is a milestone that symbolizes a dramatic life change and a new adventure. It marks the culmination of years of hard …
After Match Day: A bittersweet reflection
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