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!
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.
“If I begin to repeat myself, just tell me. I have Alzheimer’s. At least, I think I do,” the elderly gentleman said with a smile. This elderly patient of mine was a jovial gentleman and in fantastic shape with unremarkable vitals on physical examination. If it was not for his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, the physical and emotional state of this patient given his age is nothing less than enviable.
Video games, which have been linked to childhood obesity, aggression and poor school performance, are currently being used in the training of surgical residents. Most of the reported effects of video games in the media appear to center upon the alleged negative consequences: video game addiction, increased aggressiveness and various medical and psychosocial effects.
The position of an M0.5 is a very paradoxical one. We’ve gone through five months of class, amazed that our brains can fit in so much material and even more amazed that we have to make room for more. We’ve gotten our white coats and try to ask patients smart questions while having no idea what solution we can provide for the ailments being enumerated. Our goal at this point is not to diagnose — it’s to learn as much information as we can so that somewhere down the long, long line, we’ll be able to utilize what we know and make something of it.
“One of the major problems of rural health is the chronic shortage of health care practitioners in rural, remote and northern areas,” said Dr. Raymond Pong, founder of the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research in Canada.
Writer-in-Training
Faculty of Medicine of Memorial University of Newfoundland
Kelly Aminian is a first year medical student at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She holds a BSc in neuroscience from Carleton University and an MSc in clinical neuroscience from King’s College London. Her hobbies include playing harp and travelling.
