Contributing Writer
UNC School of Medicine
Mili is a third-year medical student at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, NC class of 2026. In 2022, she graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in biology and chemistry. She enjoys reading thriller novels, exploring local coffee shops, and biking in her free time. After graduating medical school, Mili would like to pursue critical care medicine and engage in narrative medicine/medical humanities education.
Pulses of Connection
Pulses of Connection is an attempt at delving into mind-body connections in medicine. This column will strive to emphasize how mobilizing the deep connections between our mind and physical bodies can enhance our sense of oneness, health, and well-being. Through narrative and exposition, I will explore how practicing physicians, medical students in training, and premedical students can integrate mindfulness in their lifestyles, as well as how such approaches can be crafted to bring healing to our patients.
One of the most powerful paradoxes of medical education is that we learn how to heal the living by dissecting the dead. Our cadavers house the beauty and intricacies of human creation, the distinctiveness yet commonality of each human body and the finality of decline.
My Grandmother never once told me how / she feels about dying.
There are two main types of advocacy: community-based advocacy — which consists of direct provision of services to marginalized populations — and political advocacy — which involves crafting legislation that affects a large group of people.
I work with four other medical students at the family medicine clinic. I am the only female medical student — our attending is also male.
she is curled on her side like a child / eyes closed, back exposed.
Many people told me that my third year of medical school would be both the most rewarding and the most difficult. That I would choose my future specialty and discover my specific path in medicine — a task which, as I began the year, seemed both exciting and daunting. Little did I know that during my third year of medical school, I would learn just as much about myself as I would about patient care and the practice of medicine.
This is a reimagination of anatomy from the outside in.
When my family saw me painstakingly hand-placing individual sprinkles on the apices of buttercream rosettes at age 15, I justified this obsessive behavior by telling them, “I’m just practicing precision for the day when I get to inject into people’s faces.”
Uppgivenhetssyndrom, also termed resignation syndrome, is a distressing ailment in which patients — often young children — completely withdraw from the activities of daily life. With no underlying neurological or physical disease, these patients lose the will to live, essentially becoming apathetic.
Unlike other specialties, radiology is often an elective rotation that focuses on diagnostics and image interpretation. Such tasks are mainly done by the specialty’s residents with little care for medical students to be involved with.
In medical school, it is said time and time again by upperclassmen that having a mentor is integral to success as a medical student. Mentors are valuable because they can connect you with opportunities, give advice on career planning and also provide reassurance when you need it.
‘Write Rx’ is a narrative medicine column offering ‘prescriptions’ for narrative medicine exercises. Each column entry begins with an introduction to the theme of the entry, offers literary excerpts to expand on that theme and concludes with questions that invite students to explore a corresponding narrative medicine topic. The goal is to offer space for reflection for busy medical students, as well as foster medical students’ communication toolkit in the increasingly complex space of patient care. Topics include cultural fluency, illness cognitions and more.
Columnist
School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin
Fiona Doolan is a 4th year medical student at the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, graduating in 2023. She holds a B.S. in physiology from Boston University, 2017. She is host of the podcast CXR: Careers x Radiology. CXR is a long-form interview podcast introducing radiology to the medical student. It was inspired by the explosion in virtual connectedness worldwide during the pandemic, and from a deep curiosity about the specialty. Fiona is an avid runner and aspiring radiologist.
Write Rx
Now and for the foreseeable future, providers and patients wear masks. An essential element of the doctor-patient relationship – nonverbal expression – is much reduced. When what is on our faces is anathema, we rely more heavily on narratives. Consider each entry of ‘Write Rx’ a prescription for a narrative medicine exercise that just might help you find the right words to relate to patients in this changed space. Here I hope you will find a bit of inspiration for reflection amidst the rigors of medical school, not in the least thanks to some famous physician-writers, excerpts from whom serve as an entry point for each exercise.
