Former Editor-in-Chief (2017-2018) and Former Medical Student Editor (2016)
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Ria is a Class of 2018 medical student. She graduated from the University of Rochester with a BS in neuroscience. Her interests include human behavior, social justice work, art, public health, and mnemonics.
To celebrate another successful year as the agora of the medical student community and the premier online publication by and for medical students, we are proud to announce our 10 most-viewed articles from 2017. Thank you for joining us, and Happy New Year!
The humble beginnings of in-Training often obscure the grand aspirations of the magazine. Since the first article on July 2, 2012, we have published 1000 articles from 450 different authors, curated by our team of over 40 editors, representing 152 different medical schools throughout the world. This is quite the accomplishment for a magazine that was born out of a simple conversation.
My medical school, Indiana University, is one of the largest in the country with over 300 students in each graduating class. Sadly, each year it seems we lose one of our classmates to suicide. The surprising part? These numbers might be lower than the national average. In the United States, approximately 300 to 400 physicians commit suicide each year. A 2009 study in Academic Medicine reported that 12 percent of medical students had major depression and nearly six percent experienced suicide ideation. To visualize these numbers, in my class alone, statistically, 18 students have experienced suicide ideation and approximately 36 have major depression.
Happy New Year! We hope you all had an enjoyable holiday with friends and family as we say goodbye to the dusty, long hours of 2015 and welcome the shiny, new year of 2016. As we begin our fourth year of existence, we would like to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude to all of you — our loyal readers and writers who provide lifeblood to the corpus that is in-Training.
At the fundamental core of what the upcoming holiday is intended to represent, beyond the shopping and the impossibly large set of dinner plates in front of us, is the idea of gratitude. In the often busy lives of medical students, it is too easy to let this holiday merely be a break from the endless studying, a time to catch up on all the lectures you have let slip through the cracks, a time to spend home with your family and long-ignored friends or a time to catch up on that ever-elusive sleep.
On behalf of Pager Publications, Inc. and the staff of in-Training, we are proud to announce the official launch of in-House, the online magazine for residents and fellows. in-House aims to build a community for new physicians as they navigate the monumental transitions in learning and personal growth in their graduate medical education.
Back in April of this year, we came across an article published in JAMA Psychiatry that called to attention the poor state of mental health for many physicians-in-training. We were excited by the publication of this seminal piece, an opportunity for medical educators, students and institutions to have an earnest conversation about the ugly stain of burnout and suicide that tarnishes the healing profession.
From shorts to shayla hijabs, from saris to suits, the gathering of minds at the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) conference in Milan, Italy last week was diverse not only in dress, but in pioneering approaches to the education of future physicians. When we started our long 22-hour journey from Upstate New York to sunny Milan, we wondered aloud what this conference would really be like. With medical educators from all over the …
Anyone who has watched a newborn mature into a toddler — or has memorized the early developmental milestones in First Aid — can attest that immense transformation occurs in the first two years of life. Children are decidedly unaware of these formative years, oblivious to their own metamorphosis and only recognizing their transitional changes through photos, stories and their family’s fond memories. In a surprisingly similar fashion, medical students may also transition from their time as MS1s to MS3s to …
A year and a half ago, we sat in a fancy restaurant in downtown Atlanta, grabbing a late dinner and jabbering excitedly about the sights and sounds of our first national conference. in-Training was barely a few hours old, little more than a few notes hastily scribbled on napkins. We joked that one day we would host our own conference, with medical students all over the country flying in to discuss shared experiences in medical education and …
As we traveled back to Albany from our presentation at the American Association for Medical Colleges (AAMC) regional meeting in foggy Atlantic City, we reflected on our past year with in-Training in this update, the ceremonial 100th article on in-training.org. Just two weeks ago, on April 5, we celebrated our first birthday. One year since our official founding and 99 articles, 7,500 unique visitors and 65,000 pageviews later, in-Training has grown leaps and bounds, from a skeleton …
My name is Aleena Paul, and I am a member of the Albany Medical College Class of 2016. I graduated from Union College in Schenectady, NY, with an interdisciplinary major in biology and sociology, and am currently completing my MBA in Healthcare Management from Union Graduate College. During my time at Union, I developed my enthusiasm for journalism while serving as the managing editor of the college’s official newspaper, the Concordiensis, and as editor-in-chief of the sociology department’s Newsletter. I enter the medical field with special interests in bioethics, women’s health, and addressing the medical needs of our underserved communities.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
Albany Medical College
My name is Aleena Paul, and I am one of the founders of in-Training. I am currently an internal medicine and pediatrics resident at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I graduated from Union College in Schenectady, NY, with an interdisciplinary major in biology and sociology as part of the Leadership in Medicine program. I then completed an MBA in Healthcare Management from Union Graduate College before attending Albany Medical College.
My passions include the medical humanities and medical education. I plan on pursuing a fellowship in medical education after residency. I am also interested in the areas of women's leadership in medicine, addressing health disparities, and providing quality primary care medicine.
I currently serve as an editor-in-chief for in-House, the online publication for residents and fellows, and a founding member of Pager Publications, a 501c3 non-profit literary corporation that curates and supports peer-edited publications for the medical education community.
In my free time, I enjoy perusing The New Yorker, catching up on science fiction shows, wandering through museums, and long conversations with friends.
