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Neha Kumar (18 Posts)

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.

Adventure #2: Pottery Painting (No Art Skills Required!)

Published by Neha Kumar

A very important 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 and students, and how to eliminate it.

Anatomy as Art: Installation #12

Published by Nita Chen, MD

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.

Training for Activism, Action and the Future of Medicine

Published by Melissa Palma

During our many years of medical training, we study complex physiological processes running the gamut from acute sepsis to the equally devastating progression of chronic diseases. We spend countless hours in lectures and on the wards, attempting to gain exposure to proper medical management of bread-and-butter medical problems as well as more obscure diseases which may only affect a handful of patients annually. However, most medical schools neglect to teach one crucial area of expertise — training in advocacy skills to address social determinants of health.

Gun Violence in the United States: A Missed Opportunity for Physician Leadership

Published by Hannah Decker

Gun violence is a public health crisis. On your average day in America, 297 people are victims of gun violence. They are shot in murders, assaults, suicide attempts and completions and police interventions. 89 of these victims died — seven of which were children. In the first 90 days of 2016, there have been 57 mass shootings. Your average American is now equally as likely to die via firearms as in a car crash.

Death

Published by Austin Wesevich

I recently finished reading Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains, which highlights one man’s journey from the genocide in Burundi and Rwanda to becoming a refugee in New York City. Some chapters are quite graphic in their descriptions of the slaughtering of Hutus and Tutsis — the pain, suffering and atrocities he witnessed. These deaths seemed nothing like being on a morphine drip in an ICU bed or falling into a final deep sleep as your family surrounds you with tears and prayers. Instead they seemed gruesome and inhumane.

China Shop

Published by Kate Bock

Medical students’ place in the hierarchy of medicine means we are routinely restricted in what we can (or should) say. That taboo list includes our own transformation — despite being only one of thousands impacted by medical education, all too often we are left alone to process how it changes us. Review of Systems is a series of down-to-earth slam poems by Kate Bock, putting words to the unspoken process not just of learning medicine, but of becoming a doctor.

After the Autopsy

Published by Diane Brackett

I went through medical school without experiencing the death of a patient I had personally cared for. In contrast to what may be seen on the trauma service, my surgery clerkship was full of routine procedures: appendectomies and cholecystectomies, port placements, excisions of pilonidal cysts, and miscellaneous “ditzels,” as pathologists may refer to them as. Sure, I have had patients who were quite sick and did not have much time left to live. For example, I once performed a neurologic exam on a comatose teenager in the ICU, whose arteriovenous malformation had bled wildly out of control despite prior neurosurgery. But with the constant shuffling of rotations that medical students must endure, I was always in and out of patients’ lives before they had a chance to leave mine.

GaMed: Gamification of Medical Education

Published by Abigail Cline

Too often medical students lose their motivation because of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. Medical students should no longer see their education as a challenge to overcome. They should see it as a game that can be won.

The Grand Tour of the Human Body

Published by Krishna Constantino

“This is a place where the dead are pleased to help the living.”

These words always greet me upon entering our anatomy lab. A similar saying in Latin is inscribed at the Palazzo del Bo at the University of Padua, home of the world’s oldest anatomical theater.

Poker Face: When Patients Are Dealt Terrible Hands (2016)

Published by David Yu

Like poker, medicine has certain rules — patterns of clinical symptoms and lab findings each correlating with a specific spectrum of prognoses that vary in likelihood, the differential diagnosis. Physicians are like seasoned card players, trained to maintain composure and incorporate numerous variables into logical, calculated decisions at what seems like a “dealer’s table” of outcomes. Sometimes, we hedge our bets that the patient will self-resolve, so we elect not to treat; other times, we act conservatively with a battery of tests and pre-emptive therapy.

David Yu (4 Posts)

Graphic Designer

University of Washington School of Medicine

MS4 roaming the wilds of Seattle, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho. Caffeinated beverage of choice: Pikes Place + espresso shot. Favorite word: gestalt. Least favorite word: gerrymander. Keeps sane by hiking, playing volleyball and ultimate frisbee, freelancing art commissions, and culinary experimenting. Catch my illustrated blog at mdcomix.blogspot.com or tweet @md_comics

in-Training

the online peer-reviewed publication for medical students