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Trevor Mooney Trevor Mooney (3 Posts)

Contributing Writer

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Trevor Mooney is a Class of 2018 medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He grew up in the East Bay Area, and attended undergrad at Stanford University, where he majored in Human Biology and somehow found a way to get into medical school. In his free time, he enjoys humor writing, playing basketball, jogging, watching television, and Skyping Luka (his family's German Shepherd).




From Flexner to Future: My Plan to Reform Medical Education

Published by Trevor Mooney

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.

Tarik

Published by Annie Robinson

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.

Should Medical Students Be Using Twitter?

Published by Andrew Micieli

Is it worth a medical student’s precious time to be tweeting? Don’t we waste enough time on Facebook and Instagram? Is it just another platform where we can get criticized for lack of professionalism? All of these are important questions to be asking. I learned over time that Twitter could be used as a powerful tool for the eager medical student, if used correctly.

Medical Tourism and the Definition of Helping

Published by Lexy Adams

“Puedo tomar su presión? Puedo tomar su pulso?” I butchered in Spanish, over and over again. Sometimes I received a smile and laugh in return, sometimes a look of confusion, sometimes a placid unfolding of the patient’s arm. I pumped the cuff up repeatedly and listened intently over the screams of playing children and the chatting of a long line of patients.

Palliative Care: What Makes a Life Worth Living?

Published by Alison Trainor

The traditional structure of medical education begins with teaching normal anatomy and physiology followed by the various pathologies and treatments. Once students reach the clinical years, we are taught to think in the form of a SOAP note. First, perform a history and physical; then, order the necessary diagnostic tests to obtain your subjective and objective information. Next, form your assessment and plan — what is the problem, and how do you fix it?

Exercise for Better Sleep

Published by Krutika Parasar Raulkar

Good sleep goes hand in hand with good health; after all, one-third of the day is spent in the state of non-wakefulness know as sleep. Whether this sleep is a peaceful slumber or ridden with multiple awakenings has great consequences for productivity, learning, attention and demeanor throughout the day. Thus, it is essential to maintain adequate sleep hygiene, and exercise can play a role in increasing restorative sleep — if done at the right time.

Policy Briefing: Residency Funding

Published by Aishwarya Rajagopalan

Whether you’re a first-year trying to survive the last few hours, days or weeks of school, or you’re a seasoned third-year ready to start applying for residency programs, a crucial piece of legislation was just brought to Congress and it’s time to talk about it. As you may know, funding for residency programs has remained virtually stagnant since 1997. While the funding has remained consistent, enrollment in medical schools has increased nearly 30% since 2002. How have we accommodated the increased number of entering medical students in residency training programs?

Hand-in-Hand: White Coats for Black Lives

Published by Fareedat Oluyadi

Maybe it was excitement that I was partaking in something greater than myself. Maybe it was guilt that I had not been closely following the nationwide outrage and responses to the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. But other than my dreaded neurology shelf exam that Friday, the White Coats for Black Lives Die-In was the most exciting thing on my calendar all week.

The Grapes of Breath (2015)

Published by Jennifer Evan

My inspiration for this piece stemmed from my experience working on the pulmonology service during my internal medicine rotation. I was moved by the vitality of our bodies and the organs that allow us to function. The lungs are one of the few organs that directly associate with the outside environment. Everything we breathe becomes part of our body, and as much as our body and respiratory epithelium can filter the air we breathe, it is not a perfect system. As a result, we breathe the world around us.

Jennifer Evan Jennifer Evan (6 Posts)

Contributing Writer Emeritus

Indiana University School of Medicine

Jennifer Evan is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University with a degree in liberal studies and a minor in chemistry. Having interests in a range of subjects, she enjoys participating in a variety of fields and experiences, from art and music, to writing and research. Her professional interests include international medicine and culture, while her academic passion is neurological studies. She is a member of the Indiana University School of Medicine Class of 2016.