Tag: medical student advocacy

Kristiana Hanna Kristiana Hanna (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Albany Medical College


Kristiana is a 4th year medical student at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY class of 2021. In 2018, she graduated from Siena College with a Bachelor of Arts in Science. She enjoys scuba diving, hiking, and weightlifting in her free time. After graduating medical school, Kristiana would like to practice outpatient primary care in an underserved area.




From Womb to Tomb (2022)

I created this piece as a donation to Female Tales Untold, a student-led event which raises money for SafeHouse Denver, an organization which serves women experiencing domestic violence in the Denver metropolitan area. This event is led my students from Rocky Vista University, the medical school I attend.

From Child Interpreter to Student Physician

I learned English out of necessity — not only for myself but also for my family. I grew up in Mexico and moved to a small Northern California town at the age of eight. When we moved to the United States, I was placed in an English-speaking classroom with no one who spoke Spanish. Necessity forced me to learn English quickly and, as a result, I became my family’s unofficial interpreter, including at their medical appointments.

Voting is Healthy: A Voter Mobilization Campaign in Georgia Founded by Medical Students

As medical students at Emory, we spent our first six months building a firm conception of what it means to be healthy. It did not take long to appreciate how much of our patients’ health would be determined by their social context before they ever walk into our clinics and hospitals. The importance of adequate and healthy nutrition, safe housing and manageable stress is clearly linked to patient outcomes. We can see these issues on the ballot in every election. In this sense, voting is healthy.

Exquisitely Tender

A 5-year-old African-American boy presents to the emergency department with left leg pain. His leg is exquisitely tender to palpation… If I read this vignette in the first year of medical school, I would have navigated to the multiple-choice answers to select anything related to sickle cell disease. The question writers are stating that the patient is Black, young and has a painful limb — this is not a difficult diagnosis.

The “Problem” with Politics and Medicine

In 2018, a patient filed a complaint against a medical student for wearing a “Black Lives Matter” pin on her white coat. When the student reached out to her school’s administration, she received this response: “It is best to not raise barriers in the way we present ourselves … Some of your political pins may offend some people, and it is probably best not to wear them on your white coat or while you are working in a professional role.”

The Long Overdue Cessation of Harmful Surgeries on Intersex Children

Recently two prominent children’s hospitals have made unprecedented announcements. Boston Children’s Hospital and Chicago’s Laurie Children’s Hospital announced that they would stop performing certain surgeries on children born with intersex traits. These announcements come after huge direct efforts by advocacy groups like The Intersex Jusice Project, lead by Pidgeon Pagonis, and InterAct, a national intersex youth advocacy group. 

in-Training, the online peer-reviewed publication for medical students in-Training, the online peer-reviewed publication for medical students (13 Posts)

Welcome to in-Training, the online peer-reviewed publication for medical students. Please contact us at editorinchief@in-training.org with any questions or concerns.