Dear future medical students: You applied to medical school in record numbers this year. Whatever your reasons, we (three graduating medical students) applaud you. You come to medicine at an exciting time: a time of both celebration and moral reckoning…
Indian parents are perfectionists. This is what I had come to understand and believe, even before I had the vocabulary to define it. Perfection was the expectation. Not excellent, not superb, but perfection, and only perfection. After years of reflecti…
In my medical school admissions essay, I wrote about helping at-risk kids like myself. I wanted to be a child and adolescent psychiatrist, but that wasn’t the main reason for applying. The real reason I applied was for my own personal survival. I…
“Ultimately, patient care is at the center of medicine and is the main reason many physicians chose to go into the field. A good understanding of the business side of medicine and personal finance can help future physicians focus on just that. Th…
Today I attempt to walk a new path in life, a path that sparkles from the sun above to guide my every move. Step by step, I embrace the light and escape the dark shadow behind me. Slowly, I start to run as I crave harder to escape my unburdening. With …
“There should be no grades in medical school. Forty-something percent of applicants get accepted to one or more medical schools. To even apply to medical school, one needs to have not only graduated or be on track to graduate college, but also ne…
“Many colleagues in medicine already talk about medicine never going back to its state pre-COVID-19 – be it telehealth for patients, new flexibility to work/life scheduling, or a new acceptance of telecommuting outside of direct patient care. The…
As an economics major entering med school, I was intimidated by a sea of classmates who had a deeper understanding of s-enantiomers than me. Once I hunkered down through first-semester biochemistry, the practical tools developed in an economics program…
I’ve been searching for a way to describe my experience as a third-year medical student until recently, when I stumbled upon two new terms: moral injury and emotional labor. Moral injury is a phrase coined to describe an insult to a person’s moral cons…
When novice medical students such as myself learn how to counsel patients, the primary didactic focus is on developing awareness of how factors such as racism, socioeconomic status, environmental stressors, and social supports may predispose patients t…
