Contributing Writer
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Gabriella Raffa is a medical student (Class of 2017) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
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.”
A woman once told me that babies cry at the slightest breeze because that is the greatest level of discomfort that they have yet experienced in their short lives. It is a reminder that we can persevere through life’s tribulations. That we grow from adversity. That new challenges make past trials smaller. That this, too, shall pass.
A web comic aiming to shine a creative and Rather Humerus spotlight on med school.
There is a well studied phenomenon in medical education: student physicians begin to burn out out early. According to several multi-center studies, burnout occurs in roughly 50 percent of students before they even earn their medical degrees. Personally, this manifests in the fading width of the bright smiles we adorned during our white coat ceremonies while our teeth begin to change to a color that only coffee-executives could be proud of. In short, we begin to care less.
A web comic aiming to shine a creative and Rather Humerus spotlight on med school.
In the month of January, we have had more cases of measles in the United States than we typically have in an entire year. The reason the United States is able to keep cases of measles so low is because of MMR vaccination. In an ideal world, everyone would receive vaccines so that the entire population would be immune to measles. This way, when someone brand new arrived, their infected state would not have grave implications. The reality is this: there are some groups of the population who cannot receive vaccines.
It has been one month since ringing in the New Year, and already, the United States has racked up more cases of measles than it usually sees in an entire year. The current outbreak, thought to have originated in Disneyland, has expanded to at least 14 states and affected more than 100 patients. Last year, there were 644 reported cases of measles, more than the entire preceding 5-year period combined.
What I have learned along the way is that many people find policy boring. Maybe they associate it with clips of C-SPAN they watched in middle school civics class, or perhaps it evokes the frustration felt when yet another health policy dies a silent death on a Congressional floor, but whatever the reason, policy is ascribed as a responsibility solely for politicians. This presents a massive conundrum because our interests as future clinicians cannot be represented if we are not the ones speaking to policymakers.
Photography taught me how to see. It taught me to listen using my eyes, rather than my ears alone. This is something that I have carried with me throughout the beginning of medical school. Though some people assume that the arts and the sciences do not mix, photography has actually informed how I envision my work as a physician.
Contributing Writer
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Olivia (Livy) Low is a medical student who is interested in issues of social justice, global health, and health equity. She graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Political Science and currently attends Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Livy is a book lover, photographer, and Bay Area native.
