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.
We’ve gone through four dreadful pre-medical years of learning everything from the composition of atoms to how an apple exerts force when falling off a tree. We’ve taken a massive exam full of content mostly unrelated to our future field only to be put through four more years of intense medical education (and several additional massive exams). We’ve managed to receive a medical degree and have gone through at least …
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“Studies show”: It’s time to ban the term
I don’t remember how many patients I saw at the health fair before George came to me; none of them were as memorable. George was a tall, stooped man with a serious expression. His skin was weathered but he couldn’t be called elderly by any means. I guessed that his age hovered somewhere around forty. He looked serious and spoke quietly. He had no interest in being rude, but no …
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Attentive questioning: You can’t learn this in a medical school classroom
As patients, we think of working with medical students as a good deed, a necessary evil to improve the future doctors of America. You spare the extra time, discuss your mother’s sister’s medical history, a detailed account of your drinking (not quite) habit, and succumb to a physical encounter rivaling the awkwardness of a junior high date.
But medical students are changing. Today’s students are starting medical school with more experience …
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Today’s medical students are better prepared to practice medicine
An excerpt from Pet Goats and Pap Smears.
Life changes in a heartbeat.
In the “Events of the Cardiac Cycle” lab, four students are assigned to each dog. Instructions: Inject the live dog with epinephrine and study the EKG. Sever cardiac nerves. Carve open the chest and shock the heart. As the dog’s blood pressure drops, remove the heart. Now, stab …
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Bambi Syndrome saved my life
Adapted from a keynote address given to the graduating medical class at the University of Toronto.
When I was asked to give the keynote to graduates of the class of ’14, it was an honor that nevertheless filled me with terror and a bit of wistfulness.
My sense of fear in giving advice to these amazing young doctors comes from not being sure I belong in the same company. They are whip smart, …
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The human cost of physician burnout is almost unfathomable
While running several times over the past week, I have thought carefully about our profession. I cannot imagine having chosen any other profession than medicine, nor any specialty other than internal medicine.
But that is me, is it you?
A medical tweeter than everyone should follow @medicalaxioms had these tweets recently:
If you become a doctor for wealth or prestige, you are going …
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Want to become a doctor? 5 criteria you should consider.
Learning in medical school often feels like learning a completely new language. There are numerous acronyms (OPQRST, CAGE) and molecules (IL-1, TGF-beta) and more. But most striking to me are two particularly ubiquitous buzzwords: “high-yield” and “protected time.”
I feel like I heard both these terms — and particularly the former — thrown around every single week of this past school year. High-yield has been used to refer to, as you …
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High-yield and protected time: A medical student’s take
My high school graduation ceremony was your typical Californian high school graduation — the sun hovering lazily over us, a cool, ocean breeze bringing wafts from the sea. As I listened to my principal deliver his address, my attention waned in and out. The sun was too warm and the wind was too soft. When the student speaker came up to speak, I reclaimed my attention to listen to him …
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Emphasize the attention a doctor pays to the patient
Today, I saved a life.
And I wish I could tell you a story about fancy heroics — about an exploratory laparotomy, a chest thoracostomy, or a patient that coded and I was the last person to perform the chest compressions that brought them back to life. But I can’t. But I can tell you that I saved a life.
She was 16-years-old, and moved here four years ago from a different …
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Today, I may have saved a life
Have you ever had a situation where your perception of some event or entity changed dramatically in an instant?
I specifically remember an instance of this happening to me while working as a junior medical student in a family practice clinic.
It was a typical day and I was doing the typical thing that you’re supposed to do as a medical student — feign interest in the clinic’s goings on and try …
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How perception of the patient transformed in a single visit
She’s 58, but appears maybe three days older than 42. Her eyes are sunken, tearful, worried, anxious. She tells me about her two grandchildren, and how she just visited them in Michigan. She came to the hospital, straight from the airport. She’s worried.
She’s worried because her shortness of breath hasn’t gone away for over a month now. She has had breast cancer, and opted for a more conservative approach: a …
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I am just a medical student
In a New York Times column, Thomas Friedman recent wrote about what Google values and seeks in its new employees. Striking to me was the fact that overall intelligence ranks lower on their values totem pole than several traditionally more important attributes.
So, what can medicine learn from Google and how can we apply it to our admissions process? Here are five key points from the article, adapted to our admissions process:
1. …
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What can medicine admissions learn from Google?
Dear new medical student:
Congratulations! You are about to embark upon an exciting, life-altering experience, one you will never forget. You are about to join an elite group of people who will now be your peers going forward.
You will be continually fascinated, and not a single day will go by from now until you retire that you aren’t challenged by something you have never encountered before. You will be solving problems …
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A letter to new medical students
Last August I sat surrounded by 163 other ambitious, new medical students on our “introduction to the profession” week. Anxiety was high with undertones of self-doubt mixed with lofty goals. Another distinguished figure had taken the floor to introduce us to the concept of medical professionalism: commitments to patient-centered care, intellectual honesty, social responsibility and advocacy. The long list of medical virtues we were to develop, cherish, and exemplify in …
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What is professionalism and wellness in medical education?
I thought the most important thing I had learned while working in the emergency department as a first-year medical student was to bop and weave. The impeccable foot skills I harnessed as a youth lacrosse player were put to great use- to stay out of the way. The quiet whisper of a nurse trying to slide behind me, and — BAM — back against the wall. I can hear the …
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The first-year medical student and the 114-year-old patient
I’m a second-year medical student, and quite recently, a lecture left me with serious doubts about the state of social awareness in the medical field and schools. The dermatologist lecturing described a patient with secondary syphilis, stating he felt the case was odd since, “He [the patient] didn’t look gay or anything,” as if only homosexual men could contract that disease.
I was hurt. I not only belong to a racial …
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A lack of social education in medical schools today
As a medical student, it’s difficult to face a situation where everything possible is done for a patient, yet due to circumstances (seemingly) beyond our control, the risk of future harm remains uncomfortably certain. The majority of our medical school learning focuses on how to cure illness; unfortunately we’re not always taught how to deal with the real world issues that face our patients and that threaten the medicine we …
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Why the diversity of medical students is important
Let me begin with by extending a hearty congratulation on matriculating to medical school. The pre-med years were tough with organic chemistry, staying involved with leadership activities, chasing down the elusive letter of recommendation, and sitting for the MCAT.
But you did it.
Be proud of what you’ve accomplished because you’re one step closer to becoming a doctor.
You may have fears, concerns or misgivings about what is coming your way and this …
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How to survive your first year of medical school
“Dr. Liu, I don’t think he has diverticulitis.”
So said the second-year medical student. She had just completed her first year of anatomy, biochemistry, pathology, and introduction to doctoring at the local medical school. One of the sharpest medical students I’ve proctored.
Like many summers, I’ve been fortunate to spend time with the next generation of doctors. These future doctors were brimmed with enthusiasm and energy. Instead of taking time off to …
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Better care is mindfully listening to patients
