The e-reader battles are clearly heating up, with the Apple iPad, the aggressive marketing of the Kindle
Joseph Kim of Mobile Health Computing argues that it certainly should be, but I think …
Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, or the Nook for medical students
Should medical students receive immunity from malpractice liability?
That’s an interesting question that’s raised in a bill from Arizona.
According to the Arizona Daily Sun,
State lawmakers are moving to keep patients injured by medical students from being able to sue them.
But proponents said that won’t leave victims without recourse.
SB1429, awaiting full Senate action, would spell out that students are not liable for malpractice if they are under the supervision of a …
Medical students should not be liable for malpractice
This semester is coming to an end and we are almost halfway done with first year. I say semester, but technically we use the block system. What’s the block system? Here, it refers to dividing the academic school year into single subject blocks. Instead of taking concurrent, year-long courses, we spend several weeks on one course. For instance, we started off with 5 weeks of only biochemistry, then 8 weeks …
Social medicine and its role in medical school curriculum
We recently discussed the plight of young medical faculty. It appears that their plight is even worse than we imagined.
Recently, an abstract was presented at the Annual Conference on Research in Medical Education at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges, in a session entitled, “Your Career is More than Your Specialty.”
The authors described a large survey, of over 5000 faculty at 26 US nationally representative …
US medical education is in moral crisis
Like most everyone else, I took a break from my evening chores the past few nights, and watched Jeopardy!
IBM’s super-computer, Watson, was taking on Jeopardy! phenoms Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. [SPOILER] The computer won handily.
After watching, I began to study for my upcoming board re-certification exam.
But, then, I wondered. Why?
In the New York Times, applications for Watson are …
Why Watson makes board certification exams obsolete in medicine
I just finished another inpatient service stretch at our community hospital with some great cases and lots of good medicine. While attending rounds may have changed a lot in the last 40 years as highlighted in a recent Annals of Internal Medicine article, some things have not changed – the focus on medical student presentations during attending rounds.
Students spend hours through their call nights preparing for …
How medical students should present patients to their attendings
Adapted from Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back.
by Kimberly Palmer
Young professionals today aren’t exactly known for our financial expertise. Dubbed “generation debt,” we’re stereotyped as over-spending shopaholics, easily enticed by credit cards, lattes, and the latest smartphone. But that reputation, it turns out, isn’t fair.
Yes, we have more student loan debt than previous generations, and average credit card debt among twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds …
Smart money tips for young doctors and medical students
What makes your doctor’s education unique from that of other health care providers?
Recently, I was sitting in on a lecture by one of my favorite physician-teachers (certainly my favorite neurologist). I’ll call him Dr. Deeds (for his resemblance to a character from the movie, Mr. Deeds). He was giving a sort of broad, generalized lecture to prepare us for a series of lectures on neurodegenerative diseases …
Why your doctor’s education is unique
They say you never forget your first “real” patient. Mine was a woman who didn’t need a pelvic exam, but who got one anyway.
Next door, minutes later, my second patient provided another personal first: a male genital and rectal exam, also, without need. Medical students like me begin training by practicing the basics on one another–listening to heart sounds, and looking into each other’s ears and eyes—but eventually, every clinician-in-training must lay …
Pelvic exam by a medical student for the first time
We were taught in grammar school that plagiarism is wrong. It is stealing someone else’s property.
Imagine in high school asking your mother to buy you “Cliff Notes” so you can copy it word for word. Mother would not have liked that, and it wouldn’t have been right.
To write an essay today, you’ll probably start with a search engine. Instantly, Mr. Google delivers many intelligent commentaries on anything, probably better than …
How to check your scientific paper for plagiarism
by Nicholas J. Rohrhoff
Each generation of physicians has no choice but to take on the responsibility of learning the science of medicine – how best to care for patients. But current circumstances dictate that we must also bear the burden of developing policy that creates the best system in which to provide that care.
Creation of a 21st century American healthcare system will require engagement and …
If you’re in medicine, you’re in politics
by Zakari Tata, MD
Biomedical ethics and bedside communication is currently taught to medical students in a classroom mainly in the first two years. In residency it is not usually given a lot of attention. This is leading to a situation where a very basic part of daily patient interaction is not addressed. This leads to many complex problems in the hospital that lead to moral dilemmas and conflicts.
The idea needs …
Bioethics and bedside communication in daily patient interaction
by Timothy Dempsey
Looking in the mirror before heading out the door for my first patient encounter, I slouched. Something looked off. I had on my new, absurdly short white coat complemented nicely by the equally as new black stethoscope draped around my neck; yet the way I looked wasn’t the problem. It was the way I felt. No matter how well I dressed the part …
Confidence in a student’s ability to become a competent physician
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I recently headed off to a reception for students from the new Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, WA who are spending their third year of osteopathic medical school in Puyallup, WA doing rotations with the physicians in our community. I’ve had a student with me recently, and it brings back memories of my third year in med school, and how things have changed. It also leads me …
Seeing a family physician at work is valuable for medical students
The following is a brief list of some of the things I think have been useful and worth their money in my first two years of med school:
1. Large, widescreen computer monitor. The volume of information required to internalize during the preclinical years of medical school can’t be compiled and organized on paper. You would end up with bookshelves filled with those gigantic 4″ binders. Therefore, almost everything happens on …
Useful things to buy during medical school
by Tayson DeLengocky, DO
There has been a growing public interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in recent years. Osteopathic manipulative therapy, a form of physical manipulation of the body for improvement of health and body function, has been designated as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to data reported in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative …
Alternative medicine and osteopathic medical education
Dear Dr. Brandt,
Using failure as motivation for medical residents
I recently finished my 10 weeks in Internal Medicine and have moved on to 1 week each of Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, Anesthesiology, and Otolaryngology. This week: brain surgery. (Tomorrow, the world.)
In 3rd grade, I wrote “I want to be a brain surgen [sic].” Ever since, it’s been a goal of mine to be a neurosurgeon. Well, until college … when other interests and the anticipated reality of a 7+ year residency …
How surgery is a team sport, and in awe of neurosurgery
A century ago in the U.S., the American Medical Association (AMA) created the Council of Medical Education (CME) to evaluate the standard of medical education.
In 1908, the committee recruited the Carnegie Foundation to survey the 155 medical schools operating at the time in order to see whether they met the standard of medical education set by the CME. The Carnegie Foundation in turn asked Abraham Flexner, a professional educator, to …
Will medical school as we know it exist in a decade?
I recently finished my two months of surgery rotations.
I am happy to say that I really enjoyed my surgery rotations. I thought I was going to be intimidated by the OR, but I found it fascinating. I am relieved, since surgery is a big part of OB/GYN.
Here are a few things I learned on my surgery rotation:
Successful surgery rotation tips
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