Joe Ladowski (4 Posts)Consulting Editor, Former Editor-in-Chief (2015-2017) and Former Medical Student Editor (2014-2015)
University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine
Hi everyone! My name is Joe Ladowski and I am a MSTP (MD/PhD) student at University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine. I am originally from Fort Wayne, IN I attended undergraduate at the University of Chicago and graduated in 2012 with a degree in Biological Sciences with a Specialization in Endocrinology. While at the UofC I was an active member of the school's rugby team, a volunteer with Global Brigades, and spent my free electives taking courses in Medical Ethics. Right now I'm leaning towards a career in surgery, possibly transplant surgery. My research focuses on xenotransplantation, genetically modifying pigs for human transplant.
Aside from the normal medical student stuff I'm interested in the ethics of organ allocation and the policy behind the current laws. I love reading all sorts of books and would love to teach someday. I was also actively involved in my school's medical spanish, medical ethics, and medical student book clubs.
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.
My name is Ajay Major, a 2012 graduate of Union College in Schenectady, NY with a interdisciplinary major in chemistry and Spanish. I just finished my two-year tenure as editor-in-chief of the Concordiensis, Union College’s official student newspaper. At the Concordiensis, I managed a 25-member editorial board and 50-member writing staff, rebuilt the newspaper’s website, and created the first Concordiensis Stylebook. I enter physician-journalism with interests in language barriers and ethnic disparities in healthcare delivery and protein biochemistry. I am currently completing my MBA in Healthcare Management from Union Graduate College and will matriculate at Albany Medical College in the fall.
We are more than just medical students. The members of the medical student body are not scholars merely fixated on the long-sought title of “MD” or “DO.” We are distinct individuals with passions, curiosities and insurmountable complexity. As future physicians, to share these complexities with each other is to engage with the broader medical community. in-Training, the online newspaper for medical students, will be a forum for this collaboration.
Ajay Major, MD, MBA (12 Posts)Founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
University of Colorado School of Medicine
My name is Ajay Major, a Class of 2016 graduate of Albany Medical College and an internal medicine resident at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
My journey into medical journalism and publishing began in April 2012 when I founded in-Training, the online magazine for medical students, and served as editor-in-chief for four years. I also founded in-House, the online magazine for residents and fellows, and The Palate, an online magazine for medical students at the intersection of nutrition and public health.
To support these publications, I founded Pager Publications, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit literary corporation that curates and supports peer-edited publications for the medical education community. In May 2016, Pager Publications, Inc. published its first print book, in-Training: Stories from Tomorrow's Physicians, a print compendium of over 100 articles written and edited by medical students on humanism, our real-life patients, and the challenges of being a physician-in-training. In November 2017, we published our second print book, Family Doc Diary: A Resident Physician’s Reflections in Fifty-Two Entries, a print collection that chronicles the journey of an intern physician in the form of fifty-two entries from her personal art journal.
I am also a lover of all things science fiction and fantasy (Star Trek: Voyager is my favorite -- apologies to all you Picard fans), and I play classical piano and clarinet.
