Contributing Writer
Albany Medical College
Preeti Panda is a 4th year medical student at Albany Medical College where she is pursuing an MD with a Distinction in Advocacy. Her research focuses on the sex trafficking of domestic minors and the role of health care providers. Preeti graduated from Cornell University in 2011 with a major in Biological Sciences and minors in both Global Health and Law & Society. Prior to medical school she served as an Americorps member at a charter high school where she worked with low-income and at-risk youth.
In the five years that have passed since I met the 14-year-old girl who opened my eyes to the terrible crime of sex trafficking in the United States, much has changed. We have made strides in state and federal legislation to protect survivors, national human trafficking prevention months have been declared, and victims are no longer treated as criminals.
At Albany Medical College, upon our orientation to gross anatomy, we are asked to draw our feelings on blank index cards prior to entering the cadaver laboratory. As we progress through the year, our sentiments regarding anatomy may remain the same, or may change, and these drawings allow us to look back at this milestone we crossed as budding medical students.
Debate about some of the most pressing issues facing our country were lost in the horse race of the 2016 presidential campaign. Among those issues was healthcare. While millions of Americans received health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 30 million remain uninsured and medical bills continue to be the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.
An explosion of peaceful energizing love / Hidden sun god and goddesses / Cropping the harvest
For most first-and second-year medical students, residency is only in their imagination, and it is not truly until the third and fourth years that it becomes something they can imagine very well. It is the mystical land of having ‘made it’: getting through medical school, having the title MD or DO finally applied to you, and being thrown head first into the clinical world.
My foray into the wilds of Alaska was part a journey that my classmates and I call “the Safari.” While no African wildlife are spotted on the trip, bears and moose are plentiful, and the journey traverses over a quarter of the United States landmass, from four-room clinics serving towns of a few hundred people to the massive edifices of a level one trauma center and tertiary care university hospital serving five states. For those unfamiliar with the program, the University of Washington is the only allopathic medical school in the “WWAMI” region, comprising of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho; the school has clinical sites and regional teaching campuses in each of these states. Come third year, students can request rotations in the multiple hospitals in Seattle, or rotate at the regional sites.
Black hellebore, a flower of the deepest black and with petals the sinister shape of blunted arrowheads, grows wild in the cool, mountainous regions of the Balkans. Despite its unintimidating label as the “Christmas rose,” the hellebore has a much darker history, one bespoken more by the flower’s ebony hue than by its innocuous nickname.
The considerations in choosing a specialty are multiple. There are matters of lifestyle and compensation, of competitiveness and rigor. There is the push-and-pull of breadth versus depth, of procedure versus prose.
One of my bucket-list goals before I die is to climb Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro. Where did this come from? I’m not entirely sure. Yet something about climbing the tallest two mountains in the world has always appealed to me; I like challenges, and I can see no greater challenge to my physical and mental fortitude. However, even though I try to work out regularly, I’ve never gone rock climbing in my life. Therefore, keeping this bucket-list goal in mind, I decided to grab some friends and go rock climbing for my next adventure.
At Albany Medical College, upon our orientation to gross anatomy, we are asked to draw our feelings on blank index cards prior to entering the cadaver laboratory. As we progress through the year, our sentiments regarding anatomy may remain the same, or may change, and these drawings allow us to look back at this milestone we crossed as budding medical students.
The white coats and patient gowns that confer the implicit power dynamic of the physician-patient relationship are not to be found here in the operating room. This place has neither the tolerance nor the patience for this subtle symbolism. Here, on the other side of the Rubicon, the rules are stark, the stakes laid bare. The patient lies naked on the table, arms extended on boards, Christ-like, as the surgeon holds the knife handle and plays God.
Unlike me, a lot of my medical school peers are involved in dance activities, from ballroom to hip-hop, and claim that going to dance classes really helps them shake off any negative feelings from the day. Intrigued, I did a little research. Sure enough, I found several articles espousing the beneficial effects of dance on mental health.
Columnist
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Neha is a third year MD candidate at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. To combat the cold and snow in Cleveland, Neha spends her time napping, exploring art museums, and taking the local brunch world by storm, one sweet confection at a time. When she has saved up enough money, she plans to go on a world tour and visit every single capital of every single country.
Mind Your Mind
A very important but rarely discussed topic is that of mental health in medical practitioners, notably medical students. According to a study in the Student British Medical Journal, 30% of medical students report having a mental health condition—with a majority of 80% stating the level of available support was poor or only moderately adequate. This column was born from these alarming statistics and aims to stimulate conversation on mental health in medical students, from providing suggestions on how to maintain one’s mental health to discussing the taboo and stigma surrounding conversations on mental health in practitioners/students and how to eliminate it.
