Author's posts
Sleep and the medical profession have an uneasy relationship
I have found that sleep and the medical profession have an uneasy relationship. Physicians, of course, recommend that patients get at least seven hours of sleep each night. But despite dispensing that advice to others, I don’t think I personally …
As I become a better baker, I hope that I will continue to become a better doctor
Growing up in a Korean household meant that I had very little experience with the type of baking that most Americans are used to; My grandma made rice cakes, not birthday cakes. But during my third year of medical school, an intern recommended a show c…
The scents in the hospital are from diseases you’ll never forget
There’s a pivotal scene in the 2007 Pixar movie Ratatouille, in which the restaurant critic Anton Ego takes a first bite of the movie’s titular food. He is then whisked back to a moment in his childhood, during which his mom provides love a…
Why a gap year will make this medical student a better physician
Whenever someone asks me what year of medical school I am currently in, I answer that I am a “four-out-of-five.” To those outside the milieu of Stanford Medicine, this is an odd response — four-out-of-five of what? But at Stanford, th…
A medical student grew up without health insurance. Here’s why that matters.
I’m constantly awed by the fact that I get to be part of one of the best hospitals in the world, especially because as a kid, I grew up without health insurance. These were the days before the Affordable Care Act; there was no penalty for going without…
