Category: Education

Medical school and the science of sleep

The article can be read or listened to. It is in the format of an interview between a radio host and the sleep scientist and director for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, Matthew Walker. He takes the audience through the j…

Unsolicited advice from unmatched residency applicants: Hope for the best, plan for the worst

When you enter medical school, you put your trust into an unspoken promise: Work hard, pass all your classes, and you’ll come out as a doctor after four years. While mostly true, this perception doesn’t take into account the residency application proce…

The evolution of medical training in dermatology and the impact of technology

In nearly every field, ongoing education is warranted, if not explicitly required. Be it the informal transfer of knowledge between colleagues, or a more formalized process like recertification, nearly every profession mandates some form of maintenance…

CDC Sees Large-Scale Covid-19 Outbreaks At Schools Not Following Safety Guidelines, Asks Them To ‘Do The Right Thing’

A recent CDC report found that student Covid-19 case rates were 3.4 times lower in schools that followed CDC recommendations compared to the community during the winter peak.

Medicine rewards self-sacrifice often at the cost of physician happiness

We’ve all been told by a well-meaning friend, family member, or therapist, “You can’t care for others unless you care for yourself first.” Put your oxygen mask on first, blah blah. But in medical training, we repeatedly demonstr…

It’s time for the ACGME to protect house staff with work-hour reductions and OSHA protection

A few months ago, I submitted an article to KevinMD summarizing a narrative review I compiled grounded in advocacy journalism asserting that Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-regulated: 1) work hour maximums, and 2) U.S. Depa…

Joy is our antibiotic. Let not your stings fester.

I had a nightmare last Christmas. I thrashed in bed for at least an hour before slipping into a seat at the start of a medical lecture. Some of my classmates were present, and while standing next to a friend’s desk, he said, “Wow, your knee is red and …

Medical student rotations amid COVID: Welcome to medicine little grasshopper

I learned a valuable lesson about mentoring medical students during clinical rotations amid the COVID pandemic, and it’s not as easy as you think. I have been in medical education, either in it or teaching it, for 20 years. I have spent countless…

Robotic surgery’s impact on training the next generation of surgeons

While we’re not there yet, we may be approaching a point where we’re facing a significant skills shortage among surgeons. A 2017 study by Meritt Hawkins found that 52 percent of orthopedic surgeons were 55 and older, as were 48 percent of general surge…

DO and MD: If perceptions matter, which one matters most?

I remember the second I received my first phone call from admissions to a medical school. I was sitting at an airport, after having finished another interview. After putting down the phone, I started to cry. All of those years of hard work had been rec…