Category: Education

Why doctors-in-training need better nutritional education

Obesity is a global epidemic, and its prevalence is increasing in every part of the world. While we have new medications and complex surgical techniques that promote weight loss, the awareness of healthy eating habits and dietary education are still th…

6 things learned from being rejected from medical school

I have spent the greater portion of my 20s enduring a premature quarter-life crisis. Patterns of self-doubt and debilitating anxiety became my new normal. I was rejected from medical school — again. After taking time to process the reality that I would…

Patients are an integral part of medical student education

A face feels nothing like a frozen pig’s foot, I thought, as I guided a curved needle into the woman’s cheek, drawing the absorbable thread across her still-bleeding wound. Two wraps around the needle driver and I pulled the nearly invisible thread thr…

How this student took care of his severe depression in medical school

We learn about it in school as a formula. There is a checklist that we are given, and we ask our patients these eight questions and then calculate whether or not they have depression. It’s so simple. Anyone can do it! I never once thought that I would …

10 tips for non-traditional medical school applicants

I would like to offer some words of encouragement to what many call the “non-traditional” students pursuing medicine. The term encompasses people in different aspects in their lives. It may be someone in a different line of work looking at medicine as …

Despite physician burnout, medical schools are still hard to get into. Why is that?

It’s no secret that physician job dissatisfaction is soaring to unprecedented levels, with over 50 percent of practicing physicians reporting burnout. While many factors have contributed to this epidemic in America over the last 20 years — not le…

Residency training, and training in residency

Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious. Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift? I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and p…

Residency training, and training in residency

Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious. Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift? I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and p…

A medical student’s letter to her parents

Dear Mom and Dad, I love you, and thank you. The rest of this letter is an attempt to write something more eloquent and thoughtful, but those are the best and truest words I can ever speak to you. I made the decision to enter the medical field when the…

What’s the biggest problem with medical education?

There has been a profound deterioration in the education of our medical students. I only make this contention after having taught over a hundred medical students across five continents, often one-on-one and for extended periods. Although the majority o…