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.
Congratulations on your admission to medical school! Your white coat ceremony is coming, and it’ll be grand. Your orientation leaders will suggest study skills, where to find scrubs and the best cheap supplements. Maybe more enlightened members of the faculty will remind you that medicine is really about the patients. If your parents are physicians, as so many medical students’ parents are—mine are not—they will reminisce about their own days …
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Medical students: How to survive the 21st century medical school
On a rotation in internal medicine last year during my third year of medical school, I spent several days watching the residents work to optimize a homeless patient’s insulin regimen. They were understandably concerned with his diabetes medications because he had been admitted in a diabetic coma, but the real reason for the coma, as far as I could see, had nothing to do with his medication regimen and everything …
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The benefit of a public health degree in medical education
There is something deeply satisfying about hitting the right note on the violin. On the rare occasion when my left hand is perfectly positioned and my bow arm is applying the perfect amount of pressure on the violin string, the resulting note that resonates from the wooden belly of the instrument is, for lack of a better word, perfect.
My favorite piece that …
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Discovering medicine’s unrehearsed harmony
I recently attended the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine graduation for the class of 2013. It had special meaning for me since this was the last group of students at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine-Charles M. Schmidt Florida Atlantic University (FAU) joint venture to pass through my tutelage prior to the Boca Raton program becoming solely an FAU program.
One of the graduates visited my office …
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After attending a medical graduation, a new sense of optimism
As a medical student, one quickly learns not to question the wisdom of authorities, and appropriately so. Do your work quietly and conscientiously and study hard. Take all criticism enthusiastically and graciously. Do not speak unless spoken to. Beyond the compassion and empathy we are all expected to champion, these are the proverbial medical student keys to success. In our roles as the lowest rung on the medical ladder, this …
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The powers that be had spoken and I felt powerless
Dear Graduating Class of 2013,
I appreciate the opportunity to address such an impressive pool of medical school attendees. From the first day of medical school when you were introduced to your cadaver, you have endured countless lectures and lab hours, physical examination and sensitivity training sessions, and ward rotations under the watchful eye of senior residents and attendings. Today, you will hold something that few people are privileged to …
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A powerful address to graduating medical students
I have been spending time at an academic medical center lately and I’m noticing some obvious flaws in our method of shaping the doctors of the future.
When I went to medical school I was trained by physicians who were eminent in their areas of specialty and also did some research. They taught in classrooms and as attending physicians when we were working on the wards as doctors in training. I …
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How should we be training the next generation of doctors?
Mrs. B was washing dishes in the kitchen when she heard a thump where her twelve-month-old son was asleep. She ran to him and found her son had fallen from a chair (code: e884.2). He was crying (code: 780.92) and visibly shaken, but did not have overt signs of bleeding, bruising, or trauma. She picked him up and immediately brought him to the emergency room.
There, he was triaged by the …
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Every doctor can learn from a medical coder
At a recent faculty meeting, we learned that the first year residents in anesthesia will now have to take and pass a written exam at the end of their first year. They will have a certain number of tries and if a resident can’t pass it by the third try they’re either out of the program or held back in some way.
Now, it used to be when I was a baby …
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No anesthesia resident left behind
The summer before starting medical school I had the fortune of traveling to both Southeast Asia and Central America on humanitarian medical relief mission trips. I was initially exhilarated by the idea that I soon too will acquire the skills honed by the doctors, nurses, and other health care providers I was working with. The idea of mastering the science of healing had inspired me for so long, yet the …
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Can the fight against healthcare disparities be won?
As part of the first-year curriculum, medical students at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA are required to attend chaplain rounds at local hospitals during which they accompany chaplains to offer spiritual care to patients. This is designed to encourage students to empathize with patients who are enduring difficult end-of-life issues and is part of a ubiquitous and important theme that inundates almost every medical student across the …
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The reality of medicine’s inherently unequal power dynamic
Medical education today requires students to assimilate lots of facts and amass an incredible fund of knowledge quickly. As medical science advances, more material must be mastered. Medical students must be able to organize facts and apply them to patient care. Medical care today is becoming more of a team effort. Successful physicians must be adept at both leadership roles and in the role of a team member (worker bee). …
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A good business school student makes for a good medical student
I’m two weeks into my psychiatry clerkship, sitting quietly in the back of a crowded Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and watching a middle-aged man discuss his past struggles with alcoholism. He starts with his difficult childhood, describing his abusive father. When he was eleven years old, his parents divorced. Soon after, he resorted to alcohol as an escape from his loneliness, drinking to “fit in” and impress his friends at social gatherings. As …
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Reflection after attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting
I’d prepared as much as I could: I had a huge coffee, a water and every kind of snack imaginable stuffed into my bag. In my head I carried as much information about dilation and curettage as I’d been able to absorb during a study session at Starbucks the night before.
I was a third-year medical student doing my obstetrics and gynecology clerkship, and I was about to spend a day …
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First day at a family planning clinic
Recent research suggests that medical students lose empathy during the third (the main clinical year) of school.
Talking with end of the year third year students might make you think differently. Understanding the psychological changes that likely occur during the third year should make you think differently.
Medicine seems easy during the pre-clinical years. You get smokers to stop and prevent COPD and coronary artery disease. Patients just need to listen to …
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How to stop medical students from becoming jaded
Over the last couple months, I have often been asked what I plan to do as a recent college graduate. My response has been that I will be attending medical school in Chicago.
“Oh! Medical school!” many exclaim as their eyes light up, “So you’re going to be a rich doctor.”
This response as well as most others I have received seemed to imply that medicine is an ideal profession if one …
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Is medicine a choice or a calling?
A guest column by the 
