Author: Diane Brackett

Diane Brackett Diane Brackett (2 Posts)

Medical Student Editor

University of Central Florida College of Medicine

My name is Diane Brackett and I'm a Class of 2016 medical student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I'm from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and spent my undergraduate years in Maine. I love to go for walks, bike rides, and play ice hockey in my free time. I will be doing my residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.




After the Autopsy

Published by Diane Brackett

I went through medical school without experiencing the death of a patient I had personally cared for. In contrast to what may be seen on the trauma service, my surgery clerkship was full of routine procedures: appendectomies and cholecystectomies, port placements, excisions of pilonidal cysts, and miscellaneous “ditzels,” as pathologists may refer to them as. Sure, I have had patients who were quite sick and did not have much time left to live. For example, I once performed a neurologic exam on a comatose teenager in the ICU, whose arteriovenous malformation had bled wildly out of control despite prior neurosurgery. But with the constant shuffling of rotations that medical students must endure, I was always in and out of patients’ lives before they had a chance to leave mine.

Darling Baby Boy

Published by Diane Brackett

During morning rounds, the resident and I stopped by our young patient’s room. He was technically five weeks old, but was born five weeks prematurely, so all in all, he was delightfully newborn-sized. The nurse was sitting in a recliner, holding him. He was well enough to be held. We finished rounds, ate breakfast, and headed to the OR. Our work unexpectedly finished early for the day, and I was free to go. Instead of immediately leaving the hospital, I headed back to our young patient’s room.

Diane Brackett Diane Brackett (2 Posts)

Medical Student Editor

University of Central Florida College of Medicine

My name is Diane Brackett and I'm a Class of 2016 medical student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I'm from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and spent my undergraduate years in Maine. I love to go for walks, bike rides, and play ice hockey in my free time. I will be doing my residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.