Testimony (2016)
An explosion of peaceful energizing love / Hidden sun god and goddesses / Cropping the harvest
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Contributing Writer
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Vanessa Velez is a fourth year medical school student at Geisinger Commonwealth Medical College interested in psychiatry. She graduated from Cornell University in 2013 and later volunteered in Los Angeles with an AmeriCorps program. On the West Coast, she began to explore her right brain and spirit. Inspired by nature, love, fellow humans, travel and relationships, Vanessa uses art to free, release and share what is being received from Divine Source. Vanessa hopes to dive further into the human experience through art and psychiatry.
Hot Lights, Cold Steel: A Review of Residency
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.
Into the Wild (2016)
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.
Women as the Scapegoats of Medicine: A Brief History of a Twisted Differential Diagnosis
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.
A Third Year Opus — Chapter Two: Curtains and Red Flags
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.
Adventure #6: Climbing to the Top of the World (or the Halfway Point at the Local Gym)
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.
Anatomy as Art: Installation #17
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.
A Third Year Opus — Chapter One: Incidental Findings
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.
Adventure #5: Shake It Off
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.
Doctors Against DAPL
On Thursday, many of you will gather round a dinner table with your loved ones and give gratitude for your friends, family and good fortune. Many of you will think of the meal associated with the inception of this holiday, be filled with warm fuzzy feelings and gloss over the real history surrounding the relationship between those who supposedly attended the first “Thanksgiving” dinner. After eating a second helping of Grandma’s famous pie, few will be concerned about the side of historical oppression or racist colonization offered with this dinner because well, that isn’t so palatable.
Against the Dying of the Light
Everyone at the nursing station turned silent and looked at the nurse who had delivered the news. I looked at her in disbelief, my brain struggling through a fog of confusion and surprise. I squinted at my patient list trying to remember who was the patient in 1152. Recognition finally hit and I remembered the little old lady that we saw during rounds two hours ago.
Gun Violence is a Human Rights Issue
Gun violence as a public health issue is not a new phenomenon. In 2014 alone, there were 81,034 injuries and 33,599 deaths due to gun violence in the United States,which equate to 222 Americans injured, and 92 killed, by firearms every day.
Contributing Writer
Warren Alpert Medical School
Meghal Shah is a third year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, RI. She is interested in global health and human rights, and enjoys reading when she has the time.