From My Hospital Bed
Where do the squirrels go / during the rain? / Can they hear the thunder? / Can they feel my pain?
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Writer-in-Training
University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
Hello! My name is Damien and I'm a student at the University of South Florida's College of Medicine. I was born and raised on the island of Antigua, and have been writing poetry and fiction for years. I hope you enjoy my work!
Henry VI, Part One: Piecing a Patient History Together
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.
Why—Or Why Not—Go Into Anesthesia, by Karen Sibert, MD
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?
How Racism Makes Us Sick: Incarceration and Illness
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.
What Medical Training Teaches Us About Acceptance
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.
Match Day Spotlight 2015: Psychiatry, Round 2
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.
Electric Heart (2015)
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.
Match Day Spotlight 2015: Med-Peds
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.
From Flexner to Future: My Plan to Reform Medical Education
A few weeks ago, I was unhinging my jaw to swallow the proverbial firehose of information that is musculoskeletal medicine. At some stage between prying my mouth open and forcibly dislocating my temporomandibular joint (really the highest-yield medical procedure for medical students in the information age … I highly recommend it if you want to have at least a fighting chance at Step 1), the following scenario blossomed into my mind: A medical student from 1910 time travels to the present day to document out how medical training has changed, and he quickly takes note of a few other things.
Match Day Spotlight 2015: Family Medicine, Round 2
Brian Blank, a recent fourth-year matcher out of UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, graciously gives us his expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
Tarik
How can doctors-in-training honor the experiences of patients’ family members? Tarik, a fourth-year medical student, shares the lessons she learned from an Egyptian man who served as the primary caregiver for his wife, who had advanced multiple sclerosis.
Recommended Exercise Guidelines
So now that we have discussed the many benefits of exercise, how much is recommended? National organizations such as the American Heart Association (AHA) have created evidence-based guidelines describing the minimum amounts and types of physical in which adults should regularly engage.
Columnist and in-Training Staff Member
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Hi! My name is Krutika Parasar and I started this blog as a medical student at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson. I have lived in New Jersey all my life, except for my undergraduate years at Brown University. I love exercise and sports, singing and playing the piano, and spending time with my family and friends.
Exercise as the Best Medicine
The further I progress in my medical training, the more passionately I believe that exercise is the best preventive medicine. In this column, I share research regarding exercise as medicine, ways medical students can incorporate exercise into their daily routines, poetry on positive exercise experiences, and highlights on how doctors in the community are using exercise as a means to treat their patients.
