Writer-in-Training and in-Training Staff Member
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
The white coat is a scary, scary thing, and I'm still trying to figure out if I should have one. If you like screaming about ethnic rage, dance, or the woes of medical education, we should probably do some of those fun activities that friends do.
I have few answers, many questions. Dialogue is huge. Feel free to email with questions and comments!
On my left, the ragged, meaty stump of a severed neck stands upright like an abandoned signpost. A classmate examines it carefully. She is petite. She stands on a stool to obtain a better angle for observation. She cranes her neck, twisting the very muscles she is studying back and forth, back and forth.
Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’ said, “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” The role of nutrition in health has been recognized since the beginning of medicine, yet somehow nutrition education has fallen by the wayside in most medical curricula. Given that 34.9 percent of Americans are obese and obesity has been linked to diabetes, heart disease, stroke and certain types of cancer, nutrition should be a focal point of medical education.
Everyone / in this cold / room is dead.
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.
Sam Heathcote, 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.
Anyone who has come face to face with a bear can attest to the fact that our bodies can respond physiologically to emotional stimuli in the environment. A racing heart rate, rapid breathing and pounding cardiac output are all physiological responses that may take place during such an encounter. But we do not necessarily need to run into a bear to dramatically affect our cardiovascular (CV) health.
To my dearest dying patient: / May I emulate half your strength, / and a portion of your wisdom, / just a part of your life’s length.
“Write your name on the paper,” he said. Since he was a senior who’d just gotten into medical school, and I was a simple sophomore who’d chosen to attend the session, I did. “Now write Dr. in front of it.” I complied. “If you’re reading that and you don’t feel anything, medicine isn’t for you,” he said. I looked at it again, my name with a Dr. in front of it. I didn’t feel a thing. I crumpled up the paper, chucked it in the trash and didn’t give it another thought.
Sophia Tolliver, fourth-year medical student and recent matcher out of Ohio State University School of Medicine in Columbus, OH, gives us her expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
Today, a person’s zip code is a better indication of their health than their genetic code is. We know that physical communities experience shared sickness, whether linked to trauma, viruses or unavailable nutrition, and there are established biomedical consequences to poverty and segregation. Acknowledging these links, however, only gets us so far; successful intervention demands thinking deeply about the relationship between patients and their communities. Rochester, NY is home to an innovative attempt to combating these issues. It is one that challenges traditional ideas of what factors define health and consequently, what metrics define therapy.
In his Pulitzer-prize winning book, Siddartha Mukherjee, MD sets an ambitious, seemingly impossible goal: to tell the story of cancer, a prevalent disease in modern medicine as well as the public mind, in a way that is both technically accurate and accessible to readers of all levels. This goal is complicated by the breadth of background details, years of medical research and countless scientific papers that are woven into the connotations of the word ‘cancer’ — connotations that for many are terrifying, confusing and depressing.
Alexandra Baluna, a recent fourth-year matcher out of Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport, Louisiana, gives us her expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
Medical Student Editor
University of Nebraska College of Medicine
The product of small town Nebraska and many evenings enjoying good reads, Chris Deans currently resides in Omaha, NE where he attends the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degrees in Biological Sciences and Philosophy from University of Nebraska at Kearney after also spending time at the University of Northern Colorado. A child at heart, Chris enjoys late night frozen yogurt dates with his wife, long hikes in the Rockies, and camp fire shenanigans with friends.
