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.
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.
A few weeks ago, I was describing my team’s discharge plan to the patient I had been following all week. We had found an anterior mediastinal mass on imaging, and the pulmonologist wanted to follow-up in a week after immunohistological staining came back. I told him we felt he was now stable, and that we would like him to follow up with the lung doctor as an outpatient within the week. He asked me if he should return to the ER to get his appointment.
One of my friends told me today that she shadowed in the emergency room on Friday night. She told me they had a patient who was pronounced dead on arrival after being shot 24 times. Unfortunately, this is a typical narrative for our emergency room on a Friday night. I wish I was surprised, I wish I didn’t already know the story, and I wish the news of another young life prematurely and senselessly erased from this earth even made the news.
In the past few weeks, there has been considerable press surrounding needle exchanges and the recently declared HIV epidemic in Indiana.
The first time I talked with my friends about needle exchanges, I had a visceral reaction. “Why would you give people new needles?” I asked, completely outraged. “Isn’t that enabling and therefore doing a disservice to the very people you’re trying to help?”
A torrential thunderstorm forced nearly the entire homeless population of Tampa Heights out from under their tents and awnings in favor of the more generous cover of a highway overpass. It was the closest Tampa had come to a publicly funded homeless shelter.
“Hello there,” I thought upon meeting my first patient in medical school. I did not get a response. Not that I was expecting one; my first patient was, as are most medical students’ first patients, a cadaver. She was draped with a bed sheet. Even when we began making the first cuts on her back, we kept her covered from the waist down.
Connor Forbes, fourth-year medical student and recent matcher out of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine gives us his expert advice on succeeding in medical school and beyond.
The words by now flow off my tongue. “I’m Sarab, the fourth-year medical student” comes off in a rhythmic flow without a second thought. My position is comfortable, even simple. I am expected to be there, participate to some degree and occasionally know the right answer — I am, after all, a fourth-year post-match medical student.
My classmates and professors tell me I overthink it. “You overanalyzed the problem.” “Stop mulling it over.” “Just focus on the buzzwords and you’ll rock the exam.” “Jump through the hoops and move on.”
Medical Student Editor
University of Washington School of Medicine
Eric serves as a medical student editor at in-Training and he attends the University of Washington - Class of 2017. In the past he has worked in EMS and international community health. As for the future, a career caring for the community is in the works. He believes writing is an essential expression of human ideas, passion and intelligence. Eric is a husband and father of three.
