A Day in the Life

Archived column.

Sejal Gupta (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Rajiv Gandhi Medical College and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital


Sejal Gupta is a third year medical student at Rajiv Gandhi Medical College and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Thane, Maharashtra, India class of 2020. In 2025, she will graduate from Maharashtra University of Health Sciences with a MBBS degree. She enjoys writing poetry and prose, volunteering, sketching anime and voraciously devouring books in her free time. After graduating medical school in the future, Sejal would like to pursue a career in the field of Cardiology.




Cheers: To Old Dreams and New Beginnings

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), …

And BINGO Was His Name-O

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 …

Home Stretch Buttlock

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, …

Smelling Roses and Other Such Tomfoolery

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 …

And the Presidency Goes To…

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 …

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

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 …

Staring at Walls and Writing Columns: A Med Student on Vacation

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. …

On My Signal, Unleash Hell; And Other Things Professors Say on Test Day

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. …

Alarm Clocks Touch Our Lives; But if They Get Too Touchy We Destroy Them

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 …

The Plan, The Column and Vitamin D

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 …

Dragos Rezeanu Dragos Rezeanu (10 Posts)

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.