Contributing Writer
Emory University School of Medicine
Leenah Abojaib is a medical student at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, class of 2027. In 2022, she graduated from Rice University in Houston, Texas with a Bachelors of Arts in Biosciences and Spanish Studies. In her free time, she enjoys weight-lifting, long-distance running, crocheting/knitting and connecting with friends and family. She is interested in pursuing a career in critical care medicine.
I have always been taught to treat the patient and not the disease. As a first-year medical student, I am not sure I know how to treat either yet, but I know that putting a face to a disease is crucial to my training as a physician. I have always been intrigued by human stories in medicine that involve difficult and often stressful conversations because they have a tendency to become flashbulb memories that impact …
Science, in German, is Wissenschaft, which translates to “pursuit of knowledge” in English. I recently finished my neuroscience PhD training and revisited my scientific journey spanning from my teenage years to my PhD thesis. As a teenager, I was busy memorizing knowledge from textbooks. As an undergraduate, I had some experiences where I learned that science is not always as clear-cut as what I was taught in classes. As a PhD student, I have been trained to look at scientific findings with a critical eye and always ask if they are accurate.
This was my patient. I sat with her, held her hand, coaxed her to share pieces of her life story from underneath the covers.
Moving to Arizona for an eight-year dual-degree MD/PhD program was one of the biggest, and reflecting back, best decisions I had ever made. Though at the time, it truly felt like the scariest commitment of my life.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of puncturing the thin shrink film around a new canvas. Getting ready to paint is a routine — the rumbling of the kettle as I thumb through my collection of teas, picking the perfect album to play on repeat for the evening. Putting on the highlighter yellow shirt from high school plastered with smudges of blacks, greens, and whites from years of previous paintings.
Oh God, what time is it? I stumbled over to my bedside table in pitch-black darkness, thanks to my new blackout curtains, which continue to be the best financial decision I have ever made, and checked my phone that was blasting my alarm.
As patients moved in and out of the modest office for their appointments, their duffel bags and luggage in tow containing all their personal belongings, the day unfolded in typical fashion. Yet, within the confines of this psychiatry office catering exclusively to the local unhoused population, “normal” took on a unique meaning.
At the start of clinical rotations, we are urged by preceptors to immerse ourselves in the experience, advocate for our patients and strive to understand them better than the rest of the team. I could not, however, shake an underlying thought: Why would any patient divulge their most intimate details to someone so inexperienced? After all, I was just a medical student.
“Could you water my plants?” I asked my roommate when I was out of town. They say it takes a village to raise a child, make it through medical school, to do anything worth knowing. When I started medical school, I had a village: parents, friends, family, a partner and my plants.
I do not know what to say or feel when I first meet you. My first instinct is to introduce myself, but you can neither hear me nor reply.
It was Valentine’s Day morning with about thirty minutes until rounds when I noticed Madeline, one of our medical students, approaching. I took my eyes off the WOW to greet her, and she shakily said that the nurse had just told her that a patient was pulseless.
Ever since I could remember, I stood out in my class for all the wrong reasons. I was the kid who dangled his feet from chairs while others rested their feet flat, the kid forced to stand in the front during class photos and the kid who always had his height checked by the ride operator during field trips to the local amusement parks.
Contributing Writer
University of Florida
Ansh Shah is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, Class of 2027. When he is not playing sports or engaging in his community, he likes to read and gather knowledge surrounding a variety of topics. Ansh aspires to some day attend medical school and become a diagnostic radiologist.
