I recently attended my 10-year medical school reunion class party, and I have to admit, I had a great time. From the beginning, my class was special. We had 104 amazing people who were truly inspired to make a difference.
However, regardless of how talented and hard working you are, medical school is one of the most challenging things you will ever …
As the birth of our first child loomed on the horizon, I couldn’t help but worry. As a first time mother and a pediatrician, I found the uncertainly coupled with too much knowledge of all manner of possible problems particularly unsettling.
In addition to worrying about my baby’s health, I grew increasingly concerned about how I would handle the balancing act that all working mothers must perform. Having put motherhood off in order to complete …
“I’ve been with my doctor for years and years,” an elderly man, voice hoarse but lilting with fondness for his caregiver, told a nurse in the primary care clinic where I was waiting to see a doctor. “He’s fantastic.”
I was coming to the clinic for a follow-up appointment about an injury for which I’d been seen a few months prior, but neither the initial appointment nor this follow-up were with …
While demographic data may suggest otherwise, I still consider myself a minority, albeit a less common one. I am a young woman in medicine, and I am a natural blonde.
I barely qualify for a prescription for eyeglasses, but I have found they give credence to my words and patients seem to take me more seriously. Perhaps three years of residency training …
As a fourth-year medical student, it was fairly easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle. When you have much leisure time and are relatively stress free, you can eat healthy, stay physically active and maintain quality mental health. However, as I begin the journey called residency, it is clear that the task of maintaining my own health will be much more difficult.
But the importance of this task should not be overlooked. …
What do you do when your ideal residency program does not exist? This is a truth that all perspective applicants must come to terms with, but I was still hoping that I would be the exception. I had created my list of everything my top family medicine program must have, including strong research mentorship, dedicated faculty, and a welcoming resident environment, and I had an idea going into the interview season what …
Match Day: It’s among the most memorable moments of medical school, a time when students, friends, family and faculty gather to open those coveted white envelopes. It’s the symbolic first step out of medical school and into residency, and a tradition that is beloved by many. Yet the matching process is viewed by those outside of the medical profession (and to some within it) as a very odd way to …
During my year as a chief resident, I have the privilege to attend on the general medicine service for 8 weeks. I recently completed 4 weeks and, as expected, found myself in an entirely new realm of patient care and accountability. I would be remiss without recalling a few of the pivotal lessons and poignant moments that stand out.
Transitioning from resident to attending inevitably results in greater scrutiny. Despite my best …
This past spring, I went to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to do an internal medicine elective at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. I rotated through two sub-divisions of internal medicine while I was there: infectious disease and cardiology.
The medicine
When I initially stepped onto the infectious disease ward, I saw the janitors mopping the cement floors with soap and water. The ward was crowded and the patients lying on …
As I look back all those years ago to when I chose medicine as a career, I suspect that my motives were similar to most people who enter this wonderful profession. I wanted to become a doctor because I had a genuine and sincere desire to help people. I also liked the idea of a busy and energetic job, one where I was comfortably as far away as possible from …
Since the beginning of it all, since that exact moment where I shot up from my friend’s dorm room cot with a revelation to pursue my ancestral calling in medicine, I have been continually questioned by family and friends on exactly where I sit in the totem pole of physicianhood. And I get it. With terms like sub-intern, intern, senior resident and attending, it must be confusing …
As a resident, probably the most common piece of feedback one receives is, “Read more and expand your clinical knowledge base.” This critique is a standard and generic piece of feedback to encourage the younger generation to never quit in the endless pursuit of knowledge. As our erudite attendings know, medical knowledge always evolves and often reverses course. Thus, the trainee is reminded to establish the habit of keeping up …
An interesting conversation recently took place among residency program directors in my field of internal medicine.
At issue was the declining pass rate of first-time test takers of the ABIM Certification Exam.
It’s a mouthful to say, but the ABIM exam is the ultimate accolade for internists. One is only eligible to take the exam after having successfully completed a three-year residency training period (the part that includes “internship,” right after medical …
ADVERTISEMENT
On July 1st, four years ago, I walked through Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals with an odd mixture of fear, relief, and excitement. Now, as I leave the hospital after my last shift of emergency medicine residency training, I am filled with a similar hodgepodge of emotions and reflections.
1. “You were terrified of being a doctor!” I mentioned this article to the attending who oversaw my first shift as …
I overheard nurses praising the pilot of a new technology with the promise of improving communication, safety, and saving on healthcare spending. The innovation: two-way texting. That’s one of the many indicators that hospitals are stuck the technological stone age.
Imagine how many eyes light up when you offer providers fewer logins, autopopulating forms, and uncluttered menus. There’s an assumption that technology, in the context of healthcare, has to be bad …
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: I love nurses. My grandmother was a nurse’s aide. My aunt is a nurse. My mother is a nurse. Nurses have been by my side for the most frightening and important experiences in my life (in the hospital and out). However, I’m not a nurse. I’m a doctor. And when someone calls me …
ADVERTISEMENT
Dr. Sam Ko says resident work hours should be limited to 40 per week. Via Twitter, I warned him that I would rebut his assertion.
Without any data or references except a tangential one, he bases his opinion on four premises.
1. Residents will be happier and nicer to patients because they will be less stressed. There is no proof that this is so. In fact, a recent Read more…
If you’ve read my reviews of the new medical TV show Monday Mornings, you’ll know I’ve been critical of many things about it. I was particularly disappointed with the way the show handled one of its central themes: the morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference.
I thought it might be useful to tell you how most real M&M conferences are run. M&M conferences generally take place at hospitals with residency training …
Al Franken, the humorist-turned-senator, once published a book that was titled “Oh, the Things I Know!” Indeed, by the time we reach parenthood, it is truly amazing what we keep up there in that attic of a brain.
Here is a brief selection of things about the practice of medicine that I have had to discover for myself or never quite figured out, including clinical pearls, aphorisms, dictums, platitudes, mysteries and …
ADVERTISEMENT
A resident is a person who has an MD, meaning they have completed 4 years of school, but they are not yet qualified to actually do anything. An MD is just a piece of paper saying you did your time in the lecture hall/lab. Residency is where you learn how to be a doctor. The term “resident” originates from the old days in which newly-minted doctors were actually living at …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
