Contributing Writer
The Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science
Ibukunoluwa Araoye grew up in Lagos, Nigeria up till completion of high school. He attended the University of Evansville in South Indiana and graduated with a degree in Neuroscience, having a minor in Music Studies. His love for performance art continued after moving to Chicago for graduate school and later medical school as he completed half of the acting program at Second City Chicago. He considers himself to be an introspective and values new approaches to thinking of and discussing various topics.
I had plenty of time to board the plane, so I casually lounged around in the airport, waiting for the last call to board. He, on the other hand, was frantic because he thought he was going to miss his connecting flight. He barely made it onto the plane, and this is when two worlds collided. I had plenty of time to spare, while he was in a time crunch — this represents the first contrast in a story about contrast.
“Are you sexually active?” / His stethoscope gleamed in the light / Of the hospital room.
Hey Jimmy,
It’s me. You. Us, I guess. Don’t ask me to explain how time-traveling communication works. I assume it’s like the movie Interstellar (which you don’t know about because it hasn’t been released yet) or The Lake House. Anyhow, in roughly four years from now I, you, us, we will graduate from medical school and I thought it would be a good idea at this point, to write back to you just as you’re starting at Schulich Med in the fall of 2011. What I bring to you is a one-time offering of advice and insight. And no, I won’t give you stock tips: it doesn’t work that way.
It is no great mystery that burnout is prevalent in the field of medicine, and it almost seems as if studies and articles highlighting this sad and disturbing truth are published daily. The reality is that doctors and doctors-in-training often struggle with their profession of choice, citing disillusionment, depression, long hours, exhaustion and lack of empathy as either symptoms or causes of feeling burnt out.
For the majority of medical students, gross anatomy is the first time that we observe and cut into the flesh of preserved cadavers. Whether it is through a longitudinal year-round program or a semester’s worth of concentrated anatomy, most of us develop a unique relationship with the cadaver gifted to us by generous donors.
Plush carpeting / Sleek screens / Exotic fruit and / Green tea / First-class on trains is penetrable, and they have chips and soda / But there is no mistaking first-class in the hospital
It is one thing to be a doctor and another to be a patient. It is a radically different thing to be a medical student paired by your medical school to a physician who is your “patient-partner.” Sounds like a word salad, but that is where I found myself as a first-year medical student at The Geisel School of Medicine of Dartmouth a few weeks after moving to New Hampshire, weeks before I would receive my white coat, months before I would have any clear idea of what the medical world is really like.
In our undergraduate careers and as far back as high school, we were encouraged, and often required, to volunteer and serve our community. Whether it was a project we believed in or just something to put on our resumes, volunteering was a part of every medical student’s life before enrolling. As classes have grown more hectic and free time becomes scarcer throughout the years, service activities are often cut from the schedule. It is not unusual for medical students to leave behind passions; I know concert violinists who no longer play, Division I athletes who no longer compete, and people who traveled all over the world that never leave the library.
Eight weeks into anatomy class. Nine days into dissection of the head and neck. Forty five minutes into Tuesday morning’s anatomy lab and we are all searching for a place of solace.
None of us were prepared for the dissection of the face. As my lab partner, Simon, chisels a clumsy midsagittal chasm between the front teeth of the body lying before us, we brace for that moment of destruction when anatomic perfection turns into carnage.
As medical students across the country enter their fourth year, many will travel thousands of miles to acquire global health experiences from the far reaches of the globe. While much can be learned by exposure to the stark differences among health systems in other countries, there is no doubt that such health disparities also affect the lives of vulnerable populations in our own communities. As a fourth-year medical student, I spent four weeks conducting a community health needs assessment of Burmese refugees in my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, where I began to learn the meaning of global health at home.
We huddled around in a circle. Some rubbing our necks, some touching our wrists, and some listening with tears streaming down our faces. It was a room of physicians and physicians-in-training, listening as one resident shared her story of watching her patient pass away when she ran a code for the first time. At the conclusion of her story, physicians and students approached the resident with hugs and advice.
The call for a more global medical curriculum — one that not only recognizes, but prioritizes health issues that transcend national, political and cultural demarcations — is coming from all sides. American medical student interest and participation in international electives is considerable, and surveys indicate that its growth has accelerated in recent years.
Former Editor-in-Chief (2017-2018) and Former Medical Student Editor (2016)
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Ria is a Class of 2018 medical student. She graduated from the University of Rochester with a BS in neuroscience. Her interests include human behavior, social justice work, art, public health, and mnemonics.
