Columnist Emeritus
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Vinny is a Class of 2013 student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, applying to family medicine residency programs. Passionate about strengthening the body's own healing mechanism, he is invested in learning more about integrative medicine and hopes to practice family medicine in combination with Chinese medicine and osteopathic manipulation therapy in the future. He loves his fiancée dearly and is looking forward to their marriage in May 2013!
A 77-year-old retired schoolteacher presented to the neurosurgery outpatient clinic to go over her lumbar spine MRI results. After looking at the computer screen for a matter a seconds, one of the leading spinal surgeons in the country turned to me and declared the diagnosis: “Spinal stenosis. There is nothing I can do for her. She is elderly, has a weak heart, and a smoking history. The risks are too great.” We went into the …
I remember when I was young, my parents told me they wished to be a kid again. Now I understand why. Do you miss the days when your only task was reading one of Aesop’s Fables? I do. Do you remember “The Cobbler Turned Doctor?” If not, I’ll refresh your memory. It’s about an unsuccessful cobbler who decided to move to another town where no one knew him so he could work as a doctor …
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 …
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. …
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. …
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 …
Last weekend, I had an opportunity to participate at a community clinic in conducting physical examinations that includes a thorough male genital check for inguinal herniations. It was an organized event which occurs yearly “to promote the well-being of high school and college student athletes by providing comprehensive physical screenings, free of charge, to all students participating in interscholastic athletics or allied activities” with the help of healthcare student volunteers (medical, dental, nursing, or physician …
“What am I supposed to eat?! How do I make the pain go away?!” An exasperated 41-year-old man with Crohn’s disease spoke to me in confidence upon his second hospital admission in two weeks for flare-ups of his inflammatory bowel disease. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease nearly 10 years ago and, up to this point, the only form of treatment he had been given was a single prophylactic pill that he took daily to …
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 …
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.
