Category: Medical school

What do you want to be when you grow up: a medical student perspective

“Please inform us of your intended specialty for your 4th year scheduling,” requested our administration in an email sent to students 2.5 years into medical school. Up until that instant, not knowing my future specialty was accepted and actually encour…

Lottery docs? Randomize medical school admissions for fairness

It’s this simple: The medical school admissions system is bloated and reinforces implicit and systemic biases leading to further social inequity. Medical schools across the country are going through thousands of applications and making literal life-cha…

Preparing for the USMLE despite 2020’s obstacles

I came from Malaysia dreaming of completing my residency in the U.S. and becoming a nephrologist. Luckily, I interviewed for programs before COVID-19 shook the world, and I began my residency at Yale University Bridgeport Hospital in June 2020. Having …

3 strategies for matching into a competitive specialty, even with a lower USMLE score 

For applicants seeking to match into a competitive specialty, it can be challenging.  In fact, it’s not uncommon for programs to receive over 100 applications for a single residency position.  To sort through that many applications, many programs…

In the face of uncertainty, choose hope over fear

Over and over again, I find myself repeating the same words to myself as I watch the sunset over the Sacramento River on my dreary commute back from my job in clinical research: hope over fear. It was with hope that 2020 began—a catalyst year in which …

We need more doctors. International medical schools can provide them.

COVID-19 has revealed once again how short our nation is of doctors. Early in the pandemic, several governors called on retired physicians to return to the workforce. Medical schools allowed students to graduate ahead of schedule and begin working and …

What Caribbean medical students need to know about the residency match

For students studying at Caribbean medical schools, success in the residency match is a major concern. And it should be, because Caribbean medical students have unique challenges. At the same time, strategizing early in your medical school career can s…

Why spiritual health is so important [PODCAST]

“Around the time of the coronavirus outbreak, 2019 also marked a full century since the death of Sir William Osler, who revolutionized medical training. Despite some lingering debate over whether Dr. Osler’s pneumonia-related death should be coun…

We are human and all in this together

Lulu was a force of nature. She didn’t believe in expiration dates. Her version of attending church was driving her pumped-up (to manage ranch terrain) golf cart out to the pasture to watch the sunset. She always had dogs underfoot who often ate better…

Reimagining medical education from within a pandemic

The Prussian pathologist, Rudolf Virchow, who gave us Virchow’s triad: hypercoagulability, endothelial injury, blood flow stasis also gave us the foundations of social medicine, claiming that “physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor” and shoul…