Note: This article contains language about physical assault that could be upsetting to some readers. Stanford Medical School saved my life. Not in the metaphorical way, but in a very literal way. If I didn’t start medical school when I did, there is a high chance I wouldn’t be alive today. I struggled writing this […]
It’s hard for me to believe that a few years ago, I completely turned my back on an acting career I had spent almost two decades building and instead decided to forge into an unknown world of medicine. Even now, with nearly seven years of experience in the medical field and currently in my fourth […]
I flash a smile as I look up from my notes. “Do it again,” I say, encouraged by his progress, “but this time start with the physical exam.” I am the internal medicine resident leading our “twilight” admitting team, and Vikram, a student on the first day of his medicine clerkship, sits across from me. […]
As a teaching clinician in an internal medicine residency program, it is safe to say that September is one of the more exciting and busier times of the academic year. Walking through the hallways of our department, we encounter bright-eyed fourth-year medical students scurrying about in a frenzy as they make some big decisions about […]
To lighten the mood, when patients ask me where I went to medical school, I sometimes joke that I got my medical degree online. This usually invites laughter because it is preposterous that medicine could be taught virtually. After all, medicine is a noble professional with time-honored traditions of passing down experiential information and hands-on […]
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey I stood there in awe as I watched the trauma team leap into action as the patient was rolled into the trauma bay. “Crush injury,” they said. Vitals were terribly unstable, and the patient was decompensating quickly. The corner of the room […]
My parents were married at the College of Physicians. They picked a location that was not tied to either of their family’s religions but still sated a ceremonial need. A justice of the peace filled the role of a rabbi or priest, and they got married under the only doctrine they both held sacred: the […]
I spent my first two years of medical school collecting stories. I journaled about my thoughts in the anatomy lab. I wrote about what it was like to learn how to interview and examine patients, about the immense honor and privilege I felt just being able to don a white coat with a stethoscope around […]
Every few months, there happens to be another breathless news story about racism in health care. Mass media seems shocked, progressives angrily tweet, while conservatives claim that somehow it was all President Obama’s fault. Meanwhile, the four relatively unknown and certainly underappreciated historically black college or university (HBCU) medical schools in the United States (Howard […]
Recently, there has been a number of articles on reducing the length of medical training to help ease the physician shortage. And our medical curriculum is due for a major overhaul. Its foundational document, the Flexner report, was released over 100 years ago, and our medical needs and knowledge have changed. Shortening medical education may […]
