I was 19 years old when I became pregnant. Pregnancy and birth, at such a young age, was both the happiest and the scariest thing to have happened to me. My dream of becoming a doctor began when I was in middle school, from a seemingly mundane moment t…
Despite major disparities that exist for African Americans in health outcomes and access to care, there is still an alarming lack of African American physicians in the field. This must be addressed with a concerted effort to recruit, admit, and train m…
Over the course of medical school, I developed a fascination for public health and finding new ways to optimize care delivery to patients. This eventually resulted in me deciding to take a gap year between my third and fourth year to complete a Masters…
Amaka was a timid-looking girl, tall in stature with a head of braided hair, like myself. She was unassuming and composed at first glance and, if my hypothesis was correct, she could not have been older than me. We were similar, both being of Igbo heri…
On February 12, 2020, the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) announced that, “the USMLE program will change score reporting for Step 1 from a three-digit numeric score to reporting only a pass/fail outcome” as early as January 1, 2022….
“You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” As a black woman, this sentiment has haunted me for my entire life. Minority individuals are consistently forced to go above and beyond to prove themselves, regardless of the setting. Unfortunately, …
“As a nearly graduated medical student, I have come to the conclusion that the focus of medical school is split between training and distinguishing medical students. Modern pedagogy has not found its way into the modern medical school classroom. …
I remember clearly the first lecture in which I began to feel the painful knot of despair clenched in my chest. We were being taught about piebaldism, a disease that impacts the pigment-producing cells of the body. It was not the description of the con…
A black girl was called the N-word on the playground in elementary school in the ’90s. That black girl was me. A black girl was called ugly because of her dark black skin in elementary school in the ’90s. That black girl was me. A black girl created an…
“As medical trainees, we will shape the rapidly changing health care environment in this country. We are fiercely advocating for our disadvantaged patients, debating the price of life-saving medications, and carefully considering how the upcoming…
