Archived column.
Columnist, in-Training Staff Member, and Editor Emeritus: Former Medical Student Editor (2012-2013)
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Writer, editor, motorcycle enthusiast and medical student, Dragos almost achieved the impossible early in life by nearly failing fifth grade. Born in Romania, raised in Colorado and somehow now in Alabama, Dragos graduated magna cum laude from Auburn University in 2011 with a degree in biomedical sciences, making his way shortly thereafter to Birmingham and the UAB School of Medicine. Over the next several years he hopes to make a few friends, learn a few things, write a few articles, and just maybe find himself as a physician-journalist in a fulfilling surgical career somewhere down the line.
Those of you who know me–and in about five words, the rest of you–know that I have a slight obsession with the comic Calvin and Hobbes. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been reading the strip religiously. If I could make a personalized version of those “Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned From…” posters, it would end with–you guessed it–Calvin and Hobbes. For the purposes of this column (and your sanity), …
Author’s Note: Special thanks to the McQueen twins for letting me mention them … twice. Still can’t tell you guys apart to save my life. There are a lot of words you could use to describe the average med student: tired, burnt-out, hard-working, haggard, (and more often than not) seated. But one word that rarely comes to mind is bored. That’s because we associate boredom with having nothing to do, and believe you me, we …
If you have some time today (I know, I’m hilarious), take a minute to look up a YouTube video of someone running a 400-meter dash, and specifically watch their last 100 meters. This is the part of the 400-meter where you get what is affectionately referred to as “buttlock” in the track and field world. For that last 100 meters, even Olympic athletes are trying their damnedest to keep form, relax, and stride it out, …
Ladies and gentlemen, the mood this week is pensive, in a count your blessings sort of way. Fortunately, given that it’s Thanksgiving week and all, I’m thinking my timing is appropriate. Enjoy. Every stage in life, it seems, has its purpose. And by all accounts the purpose of this stage seems to be worrying about all the rest. I don’t mean med school specifically (not that this particular chapter is exactly “worry-free”), I just mean …
Considering how much of an effect this presidential election has on the future of medicine, I’d be surprised if every med student isn’t taking the night off, or at the very least keeping a tab open, to watch the states as they as they pick the color they’ll be wearing for the next four years. Unfortunately, that also means that none of you jerks are gonna read this column. For the rest of the night …
Conventional wisdom dictates that the meaning of life can be found in friends, family, and love. That’s right, guys: step away from the textbooks — apparently they don’t bring happiness. I know, I was shocked too, but hey, there’s always money. Now, on the off chance you’re wondering why I’m writing a column about friendship and the meaning of life, I should probably mention that I just watched the movie from which I stole my …
No one, and I mean no one, appreciates a vacation like a medical student. I’m only two days into my first week off since the start of school and I keep catching myself sitting for long periods of time staring at nothing in particular, and I’m not upset about it one bit. In the past, a week off usually involved restless opening and closing of my laptop and insanity producing boredom. But not this time. …
How Med Students Experience Test Day: Module Director In Secret Control Room: “On my signal, unleash hell.” Students Inside the Computer Lab: “We who are about to die, salute you!” How Professors Experience Test Day: Alarm Clock: *beep beep beep beep beep* Professor: *hits snooze* *rolls over* And Now for the Column: If you think about it, for all our busyness we med students actually have some semblance of a life on non-test weeks. …
In Pirates of the Caribbean, the rum was always gone; in med school, the alarm is always on — and if there was ever any rum it was consumed months ago. Every morning, poor (literally and figuratively) and tired (just literally) med students around the country are unceremoniously startled out of their blissful, all-too-rare slumber by the chirping, buzzing, coaxing and/or screeching of an alarm clock that just never seems to shut up. Whether it’s the …
I want to be a surgeon. I am, however, only a first year; and statistically speaking this means that what I think I want to be right now is likely to change about 16 times over the next four years until I end up a 35-year-old psychiatrist/OB trying to piece together how I ended up doing the two things I had no interest in when I first got to med school. Of course the Psych/OB …
Columnist, in-Training Staff Member, and Editor Emeritus: Former Medical Student Editor (2012-2013)
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Writer, editor, motorcycle enthusiast and medical student, Dragos almost achieved the impossible early in life by nearly failing fifth grade. Born in Romania, raised in Colorado and somehow now in Alabama, Dragos graduated magna cum laude from Auburn University in 2011 with a degree in biomedical sciences, making his way shortly thereafter to Birmingham and the UAB School of Medicine. Over the next several years he hopes to make a few friends, learn a few things, write a few articles, and just maybe find himself as a physician-journalist in a fulfilling surgical career somewhere down the line.
