“Is ere anything more we could have done?” I am not the first person to ask this question, and I will not be the last. This past week I learned that an ex-boyfriend from my graduate school years, who had moved overseas in 2016 and disappeared off the g…
What are you doing to take care of your mental health on World Mental Health Day? Tell me, is something eluding you, sunshine? Today, I’m listening to Pink Floyd for 2 reasons: 1. This morning, I did a 10-minute yoga flow with Denis Morton, who played …
The era of the empowered patient and patient-centered health care has been upon us for some time. Only a generation ago, there was a much more paternalistic approach to medicine. This has changed for the better across the western world. As somebody who…
“We dealt with the death, uncertainty, and fear of COVID-19 with a stiff upper lip. But our hearts broke when George Floyd was murdered by the police on May 25. George is a symbol of an immense problem. A study reported that one in every thousand…
Racism is a pandemic that has long existed before COVID-19. As a fourth-year medical student, I have been rotating in the hospitals and recently finished my sub-internship. Whether on the wards or in outpatient clinics, a recurring phrase would hover f…
It was an average Minnesota fall day. I ran out of the house to do a 3 a.m. vaginal delivery. I was tired, both mentally and physically. Medicine has always been such a joyous calling for me. I probably commit nearly 16 hours a day to my job in one …
By my second rotation of the third year, I could not help but feel like a superfluous, if not inconsequential, cog in the medical machine. Yes, we are learners and need to see patients in order to become adequate health care providers – but on a busy l…
Despite the pervasiveness of mental illness and burnout among medical providers, only in the past decade have providers begun to acknowledge and explore the psychological distress so many struggle with. As a resident, I have observed how COVID-19 has f…
An excerpt from Man’s 4th Best Hospital. “Why am I here?” the Fat Man was saying to us, his team gathered for the first time around in his new public clinic leaning up against one of the soaring buildings of Man’s 4th. “And why are you? One day I…
“Government officials, regardless of political affiliation, should seek sound medical advice before communicating with their constituents. Appropriate public health information should be shared so that constituents are not harmed by following mis…
