Match Day Spotlight 2015: Family Medicine, Round 3
Sian Tsuei, a recent fourth-year matcher out of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine in Canada, gives us his expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
Sian Tsuei, a recent fourth-year matcher out of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine in Canada, gives us his expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
The sarcophagus before me dominates the exhibition. Intricately carved animals, including a line of fierce lions, arise from the slab of marble. Peering more attentively, I even notice the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, wielding her characteristic shield and helmet. A horse pulls a chariot, and perhaps that is Hector there on the ground, the Prince of Troy now fallen.
Your neck muscles heaved as you sucked in air through pursed lips. Pink puffer, I thought immediately, to my shame. That wasn’t why I was here.
“Race is a social construct.” This is a statement that we hear frequently but don’t fully believe or understand. In the United States, we may superficially state that race is a social construct, but in reality, we understand it as genetic underpinnings. In medicine especially, race and genetics are often understood as interchangeable.
Where do the squirrels go / during the rain? / Can they hear the thunder? / Can they feel my pain?
Picture the following two scenarios: The funeral procession of Henry V passes through Westminster Abbey, and the following remark is made: “The King from Eltham I intend to steal, / And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.” The second scenario is a physician who goes into an exam room and hears the patient talking about his “stomach pain,” intake of “spicy foods,” and his “use of Advil for headache relief.” These are two entirely unrelated scenarios, yes, but the shared theme is that both dialogues contain important clues to a bigger picture.
In case you were wondering: robots won’t replace anesthesiologists any time soon, regardless of what The Washington Post may have to say. There’s definitely a place for feedback and closed-loop technology applications in sedation and in general anesthesia, but for the foreseeable future we will still need humans. I’ve been practicing anesthesiology for 30 years now, in the operating rooms of major hospitals. Since 1999 I’ve worked at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a large tertiary care private hospital in Los Angeles. So what do I want to tell you, the next generation of physicians, about my field?
Today, there are more people in jail for drug offenses then there were prisoners for all crimes in 1980. People of color comprise more than 60 percent of those incarcerated, yet represent only a third of the country’s population. While the issues leading to the disproportionate incarceration of people of color are many, I wish to focus on a single contributor which is the most important cause of America’s dramatic increase in incarceration — the structural racism readily apparent in our country’s approach to drug offense convictions.
Physicians in-training are granted a privilege unparalleled in society. Human beings generously donate their bodies for our learning. They lay naked, exposed on cold stainless steel tables while strangers, who will never know their name, study them intimately. Like a grandfather telling stories to the next generation, their organs reveal to us a story of life.
Laura Black, a recent fourth-year matcher out of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA, gives us her expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
The beating heart is autonomous, having its own electric circuit to stimulate each contraction. Throughout the ages, the mystery of the heart has symbolized love and life in art and religion. Although this pulsing muscle has been highly studied by scientists, doctors and medical students across the world — dissected and scrutinized to the smallest detail — the aesthetic and metaphorical power of the human heart remains unchallenged.
Adam Ketner, a recent fourth-year matcher out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, gives us his expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.