Columnist and in-Training Staff Member
Albany Medical College
Madeline Haas is a graduate of Harvard College and a Class of 2016 student at Albany Medical College in Albany, New York. Cooking keeps her sane and healthy within the limitations of the med school lifestyle and budget. Read her daily blog at The Med School Cookbook.
The Med School Cookbook
The Med School Cookbook offers a weekly account of the challenges and wonders of med school as seen through the eyes of a student. Each post includes a healthy and easy recipe designed for busy people on a budget.
Last night, I saw a few patients at our student-run free clinic that takes place on Wednesday nights. Every time I get a little bit better at one thing, something else just gets harder. For instance, I’ve figured out how to fill a syringe and deliver an injection at the proper 90-degree angle, but then I realize that I did none of the hard work to coo at and calm down the screaming toddler receiving …
I met a resident who advocated that all medical students should become patients and have the same procedures that they order for their patients performed on them à la the movie “The Doctor.” While I agree that being a patient offers perspective, I don’t agree that I need to have tertiary syphilis to understand how to interact with a patient facing the illness. We act as health care providers and now view the world in …
We’ve always been on a healthy eating craze and want to send the message that eating healthy does not mean eating boring and expensive foods. We’re all about eating tasty foods that are easy to make, especially when time is so tight. A classmate of ours recently talked about buying frozen taquitos for a get-together because they were easy finger foods that most people enjoy. Taquitos are a great party food item but we wanted …
Coming from a family consisting almost exclusively of engineers, the world of medics had always been somewhat a mystery to me. All the family friends who my parents hung out with were engineers. None of my friends in school had parents who were doctors. The only doctors I met were the ones I saw for the little cold or flu that didn’t happen very often. The only idea I had about doctors came from what I …
Over the past year, I’ve had a great experience getting involved with Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP), a national and on-campus advocacy group. The organization’s long-term goal is to reform health care financing in favor of a single, public insurance offering for all Americans (the “single-payer” movement). Its short-term goal is to increase grassroots support among physicians and health professional students in conjunction with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). One thing …
Including athletic agility, intelligence and social behavior, many human traits are thought to exist along a continuum. Often, dynamics in skills and personality are used to distinguish one individual from the next. But when aspects of social behavior exist in such a range, it challenges scientists and behavioral specialists to identify the presence of a cognitive impairment or deficit. What factors should be used to identify a mental illness among the cohort of traits that …
The world of nutrition has become an increasingly hot topic over the past few years. It is emerging as a thriving field of research, clinical practice, and delicious recipes! Nutrition is more than just vitamin supplementation or eating a balanced diet. Within the many medical specialties, nutritional support plays an integral role in the care of patients at different stages of health and their life cycle. In cardiology, nutrition plays a major role in managing …
When I was a first-year medical student, the upperclassmen said that medical school would get better and better. I didn’t feel like that by the end of first year—or during second year. Third year started and it finally picked up. Now, as a fourth-year medical student, I can definitively say that medical school really does get better and better—you just have to be patient (but not a patient). Not everything in medical school is as …
Not too long ago, I was still in the world of “pre-clerkship”, the realm of lectures, teaching sessions, attendance and classrooms. That time seems so long ago now after entering the wards as a third-year student on clerkships. That world of preclerkship seems so much simpler, and safer, than being in the hospital right now, with its fluorescent lights, long hallways, and patient rooms. Classrooms were a world to which I had become accustomed and …
Are you the kind of person who, like me, dances around the pasta pot waiting for water the boil, munching on uncooked noodles? Sometimes I pretend that I am going to memorize flashcards during this waiting period, but instead I end up tiptoeing over to the pot every few minutes “just to check on it.” Well, tonight I learned that by being extra lazy, it is possible to make a delicious fresh tomato sauce during …
Walking down the hospital halls after neurology, every twitch, twist of the neck or odd posture appears a nail to my hammer. Neuro lectures are captivating yet depressing, largely because right now, we can treat the symptoms but not the underlying cause of several diseases. However, everything we can treat is breathtaking, and soon we will develop cures for more diseases—hopefully. In the land of food, it seems that fall in upstate New York is …
While the aphorism “what goes around comes around” is by no means original to my mother, she most certainly repurposed it.* Along with her emphasis on the importance of education, this is a phrase that I remember being one of her earliest and most frequent messages to me and my siblings. When I think of how this phrase is generally used in pop culture, it’s a thinly veiled reminder that, sooner or later, the universe …
Columnist Emeritus
Albany Medical College
I'm Jency, a graduate of Siena College in New York where I received a BA in biology and a minor in Franciscan Service and Advocacy. I am currently in the Class of 2016 at Albany Medical College as part of the Siena/AMC combined-degree program in Science, Humanities, and Medicine. What you'll read from me will be an amalgamation of my life experiences and my non-academic thoughts--a mingling of the lighthearted and the thought-provoking. Though a laundry list could never truly encapsulate my (or anyone’s) deepest life’s passions, in a nutshell they are (in no particular order): travel, photography, film, literature, writing, graphic and interior design, comedy, real hip hop, onion rings, and--above all, and in all seriousness--this irresistible pull I feel towards society’s underserved, marginalized populations. They are those whom I fear we, as blossoming medical professionals, will be ill-equipped to care for unless we take positive steps to broaden our horizons and circles of inclusion.
My Mother's Pearls
My mother is a very simple woman. Though she may be a well-respected physician at Columbia University, you might never know it if you saw her. She dresses simply, she speaks kindly, and she cares endlessly. Her wealth lies not in her tangible possessions--she doesn't even own a pearl necklace. Her pearls are of wisdom, and it is those pearls that I hope to share with you.
