Medical school
Discover the secrets to regaining joy in medicine
An excerpt from Reclaiming the Joy of Medicine: Finding Purpose, Fulfillment, and Happiness in Today’s Medical Industry.
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
– Maya Angelou
When I was experiencing burnout, I felt something was wrong with me. I kept questioning myself.
Why couldn’t I fulfill all the demands …
A test of medical leadership for Penn’s new president
When the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill was forced to resign her position due to her equivocal stance regarding antisemitic harassment on Penn’s campus, J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, was soon announced as her interim successor. Jameson had served as executive vice president of Penn’s health system and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine since 2011.
Jameson is a prominent molecular endocrinologist, author of over 350 scientific …
Is it noble or selfish to never practice medicine after getting a medical degree?
A Harvard medical school student realized in his third year that he had lost his desire to become a doctor. Nevertheless, the student decided to complete his fourth year and obtain his MD degree. The student is now planning for a career in pharma or even comedy. Some individuals who read his online essay found the student’s decision-making comical in itself. Overall, their comments were evenly divided about the …
Catastrophic failure of educational leadership can affect medical students
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said he can’t define pornography, but he knows it when he sees it. Stewart might just as well have been talking about leadership—reflecting the difficulty in providing a precise definition of leadership but suggesting that individuals can recognize ineffectual leadership when they encounter it.
The abject failure of three university presidents to answer “yes” to a simple question—whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate …
Communication in health care: lessons from a standardized patient [PODCAST]
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Join Esther Covington, a professional standardized patient. Esther shares her firsthand experiences, shedding light on the critical role communication, empathy, and assumptions play in medical education. We delve into the impact of assumptions on patient care, the …
Exploring medical students’ vital role in patient care [PODCAST]
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Join Nicole Cifra, an adolescent medicine physician, as we delve into the often-underestimated but invaluable role of medical students in patient care. Nicole shares her personal journey, experiences, and insights, shedding light on how medical students play …
September in medicine: scouting season for future doctors
In medicine, September marks scouting season. Like professional baseball clubs, residency programs meticulously generate and analyze scouting reports for prospective interns, aimed toward building an ideal lineup of future doctors that functions seamlessly as a team while augmenting everyone’s individual strengths.
From an applicant’s perspective, the focus on experience, exam scores, and class rankings reflects the layout of a player’s statistics on the back of a baseball card. With more objective …
From medical humanities student to physician
At seventeen, I envisioned two types of physicians: the doctor who cared about me and my needs, and the doctor who was cold and detached. At that point in my life, I had experienced both types of physicians from the patient perspective. My dream was to become a physician. I wanted to be the empathetic doctor, the one who saw the patient as a person. I aspired to become the …
How Tratak yoga reshaped my USMLE Step 2 prep
This is a notable example of the impactful outcomes that can arise from venturing beyond conventional routes to chart distinctive journeys toward success.
Like countless other medical students, I committed months to intensive preparation, diligently taking mock tests, revising tirelessly, and faithfully adhering to the trusted USMLE Step 2 study resources. Yet, each mock test I undertook delivered the disheartening verdict of “fail.” It was an emotionally taxing struggle, and despite …
The role of income in medical school acceptance
It was during my general surgery rotation that I had an encounter with a urologist attending while waiting for pending surgery to occur. As we made small talk about the medical field, our conversation gravitated toward the topic of medical school admissions. The attending shared their opinion on the pressing issue of diversity among medical students, specifically in terms of socioeconomic status (SES). They discussed how the lack of representation …
Balancing tension and kindness in medical education
I recall a particularly tense interaction on my surgery rotation in medical school. The sub-intern on our team, a dedicated classmate of mine, was instructed to carry the call pager one Friday afternoon, to the undue chagrin of the team’s nurse practitioner. With an irritable toss of her blonde hair, eyes rolling with exasperation, the NP snappily handed off the pager to our sub-intern. “Ugh, this is going to slow …
Perseverance in medical school [PODCAST]
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Join Marthena Phan, a medical student who shares her story of perseverance, setbacks, and ultimate triumph. From struggling with academics to facing the daunting prospect of starting over, Marthena’s story is a testament to resilience, the power of support, and the importance of embracing challenges.
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Coaching for medical students [PODCAST]
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We’re joined by Amruti Borad, a family physician, to explore the transformative power of coaching in medical education. From the highs and challenges of medical school to self-doubt and purpose-seeking, we discuss how coaching can enhance resilience …
Business education’s role in preventing physician practice decline
Physicians, particularly those who haven’t received business education, must address the frequently circulated question among their ranks: “Can you practice medicine without money?” Medical history unveils an era when most physicians were compensated through non-monetary means for their medical services and often went unpaid.
During that time, the choice to pursue a medical career was grounded in the personal belief that treating patients was the foremost aspiration for most physicians. Few …
The impact of assumptions on patient communication in medical training
At one of the medical schools where I am a standardized patient (SP), a student recently failed a portion of the exam because he did not ask his SP questions that were integral to her medical care. When asked by his faculty preceptors why he didn’t ask the SP key questions about her background (she was a Hasidic Jew who couldn’t take her medication on the Sabbath), the student, who …
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Reactions to eliminating race conscious admissions from medical schools
The medical community was rocked by the United States Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina, et al. The ruling essentially banned race in consideration for admitting students to colleges and universities. Several medical schools and professional organizations retaliated by vowing to continue affirmative action practices, or at least figure …
Confronting stereotypes: reflections of an Asian medical student
“Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”
It was the first day of my subspecialty rotation. I’d left my husband, friends, and my home to spend the next six weeks some 2500 miles away. Like most third-year medical students on the first day of a new rotation, I felt a mixture of anxiety and anticipation for the challenge ahead.
Arriving on the twelfth floor before dawn, my badge did not work. …
The medical establishment’s fight for and against diversity
The recent ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to eliminate race-conscious decision-making from college admissions is being openly challenged by the medical establishment. The American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Medical Board of California, and the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaii (among others) are continuing efforts to diversify education and medical staffing despite a 6 to …
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Celebrating a family tradition: a recent medical school graduation
Last week, my niece, Maria Piedad Villadiego Carrascal, the only child of my sister, Maria A., graduated from medical school. In doing so, she became the seventh member of the Carrascal family to embrace medicine as a profession. It was an emotional moment. I could not hold back tears as I watched the event, which was streamed live.
By chance, the week before graduation, she and her cousin, my nephew Mauricio, …
Past Week
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Past Week
-
Doctors don’t need yoga, they need time to smoke
-
Flatline: Our nation is dying, and we’re ignoring the signs
-
Leaving medicine is not a failure: It might be the change you always needed
-
How the CDC’s opioid rules created a crisis for chronic pain patients
-
From the other side of the table: a plea for empathy
-
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
-
Past 6 Months
-
How trade wars could destroy the U.S. health care system
-
The hidden bias young female physicians face every day
-
Cutting opioid use in half: a hospital’s pain management breakthrough
-
How hospitals are quietly taking control of physicians
-
How the system hunts physicians who refuse to kneel
-
How to advocate for your transgender child’s health care
-
Recent Posts
-
Funding physician wellness: a guide to getting programs approved [PODCAST]
-
How the CDC’s opioid rules created a crisis for chronic pain patients
-
Why physicians find negotiating challenging—and what they can do to negotiate better
-
A tribute to Kobe Bryant: inspiration beyond the game
-
When leadership turns defensive: the impact of workplace paranoia on professionalism
-
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
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