Columnist Emeritus and in-Training Staff Member
Temple University School of Medicine
I'm a fourth-year medical student and masters in urban bioethics candidate at Temple. Medical school helped me realize that the only way for me to stay sane after seeing and doing what we do is to express it- and this is how I express the madness that is my life, and my life in medicine.
The Fourth-Year Faux-cisian
The Fourth-Year Faux-cisian deals with the trenches of medicine, the dirty details and the inglorious scut, as well as with the sublime and transcendent moments. The posts I write are about medicine, humanism, life, philosophy, and most of all the ruminations of a young doctor-to-be as he embarks upon the transformative journey of becoming a physician while attempting to hold onto his humanity.
Follow him at @SarabSodhi and his website www.sarabsodhi.com !
“Write your name,” he said. I complied on a little scrap of paper. He was, after all, the senior in college who had just been accepted to medical school, and therefore all wise and all knowing. “Now write Dr. in front of it.” Again, I complied. “If you don’t feel a little surge of adrenaline when you see that, maybe medical school isn’t right for you,” he continued.
For me, hepatitis B booster shots feel pretty much as pleasant as being sucker punched in the arm. You can imagine that it didn’t inspire much elation when I scrolled through my calendar to see, spelled out in big red letters, a reminder for “Hep B #3.” Now, as I reflect, this reminder feels like a victory of sorts.
What were you doing on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015, at 9 p.m. EST? Were you taking a bath? Were you having a meal? Most people were probably watching their favorite television show, having quality time with their families or reflecting on the day’s happenings. However, about 20,000 medical students and medical graduates in the United States collectively held their breath at 9 p.m. EST.
My thumb is on the white plunger: first stop / and now the pipette is ready to suck. / My hand is trembling, hovering over / the small plastic tube. I dip it down and in, / release the plunger, and draw it all inside.
In recent weeks, President Obama signed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, a landmark step in promoting access to services and in supporting efforts to reduce deaths by suicide among veterans. Nearly 20 percent of deaths by suicide in the United States each year are by veterans, particularly veterans who served in active duty and combat.
As a medical student, there is nothing more precious to us than time and brain space. More than once have I left a lecture thinking, “That was a complete waste of my time.” With the volume of information thrown at us, it is paramount to focus on the high yield. Every kind of resource, from Pathoma to First Aid, focuses on the high-yield information that will show up on Step 1. Sometimes, I don’t even think that far.
My stomach had been in knots that morning. “Are you pregnant?” my classmate laughed after I returned to the gross anatomy lab for the second time after leaving to get a drink. “No,” I chuckled, and returned to cutting through fat and fascia, teasing out the muscles and nerves for the day’s dissection. But, I wondered.
Many medical students made the choice to pursue their career path in their college years or even in high school, and nearly all doctors have chosen their profession by the end of their third decade. These are exhilarating years for young people. These are years where life can seem rich with freedom, opportunity, and, notably, with length. Dedicating a decade to medical training can seem like a choice that, though not easy, represents a worthy investment of one’s youth.
In this piece I hoped to portray that while physicians are healers who often hold life in their hands, in many ways, it is the patients who give life to the physicians. Each patient we see is a unique hue or brushstroke in our medical training and careers, adding color and texture which transforms an otherwise monochromatic existence into a full spectrum of experiences.
How can doctors-in-training integrate policy change with patient care? Matt, a fourth-year medical student in Philadelphia deciding whether to pursue clinical medicine at all, shares his divergent path through medical school that involved taking two years off. He reflects how his work with the government on systemic health care issues and later in medical communications informed and reinvigorated his work on the wards.
Figure 1, the Instagram for doctors, aspires to change the way that physicians around the world collaborate. Figure 1 is a free app for sharing medical images. The vast collection of archived images allows health professionals and medical learners to view everything from classic textbook cases of winged scapula to the once-in-a-lifetime cases of harlequin ichthyosis. Dr. Joshua Landy is the chief medical officer of Figure 1. Landy, along with co-founders Greg Levey and Richard Penner, officially launched the app in January 2013.
A few years ago when I was working at a charter school in upstate New York, one of my students was caught “prostituting herself” to men she was messaging online. When asked, she said she was doing so for a 30-year-old man she claimed was her boyfriend. Word about this traveled quickly at school. Students talked about her behind her back and called her a “hoe.”
Contributing Writer
Albany Medical College
Preeti Panda is a 4th year medical student at Albany Medical College where she is pursuing an MD with a Distinction in Advocacy. Her research focuses on the sex trafficking of domestic minors and the role of health care providers. Preeti graduated from Cornell University in 2011 with a major in Biological Sciences and minors in both Global Health and Law & Society. Prior to medical school she served as an Americorps member at a charter high school where she worked with low-income and at-risk youth.
