Passion in the Operating Room
When Dr. T shook my hand goodbye for the day’s observation, I shook her hand back and said to myself, “Yes, this is what I want to do.”
Through the course of medical education, students learn to call for “consults” from various medical specialties. Yet, consults can come in many forms — from social work, nutrition, law, ethics and policy. There is also much to be learned from premedical and post-bacc students, who may be walking into medicine with a fresh set of eyes. “Consults” invites experienced non-clinicians and undergraduates to contribute pieces relevant to the medical student community.
When Dr. T shook my hand goodbye for the day’s observation, I shook her hand back and said to myself, “Yes, this is what I want to do.”
Ever since that day in the grocery store, I have volunteered at least once a month for other senior citizens. I get to know their stories and try to share the understanding that I have gained with the world.
Fifteen percent of Americans still smoke. Seventy percent of Americans are obese or overweight. Many Americans engage in risky health behaviors that negatively affect their overall wellness.
As the American health care system continues to seemingly spend more and get ranked lower than other developed countries, many progressives have suggested a shift to single-payer health care as a solution.
It’s ironic that the medical field is arguably the most humane profession, yet we put our residents and physicians-in-training through such pain and suffering.
Autumn has been my favorite season since moving to Oregon four years ago from the dry, unchanging desert landscape of Las Vegas, Nevada. The freeway towards my class dips into a valley surrounded by broad-leafed trees with ferns growing near the base of their trunks.
“That’s rubbish.” My new friend — I’ll call her Sylvia — lay supine on her bed, staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling. White bedsheets swathed her long, gaunt limbs, and her sickly pallor startled me.
“Knife.” One of the surgical nurses slapped it into his hand, and Dr. James drew the scalpel quickly down the woman’s betadine-covered belly. So little fanfare preceded that moment that I almost missed it.
My palms were sweaty as I slid on my blue gloves and boot covers, feeling excited and anxious at the same time. “I’ve delivered hundreds of babies,” Dr. Johnson said. “I think I can give you this one.”
As future doctors, we must advocate for a more integrated nutrition and lifestyle medicine education, one that is based not just in healthy eating, but also in the reversal of this global chronic disease epidemic. Let healthy food be thy guide to a happy body and soul.
When Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach, was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse, few could foresee that he was about to hurt thousands of students, future physicians and aspiring scientists across the nation.
Her agitation was clearly apparent, plastered to her face like the smile she had worn moments ago. The phone was still clenched tightly in her hand as she paced the narrow hallway, muttering under her breath how travesties like this would not occur back in her native Ghana.