If you’re reading this, you may have a son, a daughter, a family friend, or know of someone who is in college and considering medical school. As a medical student mentor, I share words of advice to my alma mater’s American Medical Student A…
Category: Medical school
3 things I wish I had known before starting medical school
I wish the best of luck to everybody applying to medical school. As somebody who was in this position five years ago, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the things I wish I had known before I started medical school. 1. Look beyond …
The financial barriers of applying to medical school
In May 2018, it happened. The American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) opened its floodgates. As we wrapped up our last years in undergrad, we felt a twinge of excitement as we finally began applying to medical school. But we quickly found …
Remembering Dr. Denton A. Cooley
Back in the 70s, Dr. Denton A. Cooley would do eight or so heart operations a day often on babies and children with heart defects. One day, he operated on four babies. Three of them died. It was around eight o’clock at night, and as Dr. Cooley wa…
How to match into dermatology: A medical student shares her success story
I didn’t match dermatology the first time. It was a harrowing experience, and I had a chip on my shoulder until the day I opened my match envelope. The reality is that in the last ten years, dermatology has become the most competitive specialty i…
How a food blog paid for medical school tuition
Three years ago I left my medical school interviews thinking I was not going to be accepted. “You seem like a businesswoman. Why do you want to be a doctor?” I was asked. I had spent my undergraduate years devoted to building an online food blog with o…
Celebrating Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first African American female physician in the United States
Last month on February 3, 2019, we celebrated National Women Physician’s Day (NWPD). Created in 2016 by the Physician Mom Group (PMG) in collaboration with Physicians Working Together (PWT) and Medelita, NWPD honors the first female physician in the U….
The difference between learning medicine and doing medicine
Back when I was a third-year medical student, I would sometimes bike to the hospital campus early enough to catch the groundskeepers cleaning the promenade in front of the medical school before the foot traffic arrived. Discovery Walk, as it’s called, …
Teaching medical professionalism through literature
A excerpt from From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature (Literature and Medicine). There are several traditional ways to teach about professionalism. Some training programs have didactic lectures on this issue. These…
Teaching medical professionalism through literature
A excerpt from From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature (Literature and Medicine). There are several traditional ways to teach about professionalism. Some training programs have didactic lectures on this issue. These…
