Editor Emeritus: Former Medical Student Editor (2013-2015)
Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida
Sasha is thrilled for the opportunity to combine her interests in writing and medicine. She has been writing since she got her first journal in second grade, and editing since she ran her high school newspaper. Her interest in medicine evolved through travel, studying the brain through the lens of social science as undergraduate at Boston University, and together with her interest in yoga and dance. Sasha gets inspired on long runs and looks forward to few things more than hiking with her mom.
Moving across the country to attend medical school left me without a fridge that was magically full of Russian salads, homemade breads and grilled goodies. This magic was never much of a rainbow. It was domineered by the deep purplish-red of cooked beets. Despite their sweet and hearty favor, I didn’t want my kitchen, cloths and fingers to turn into a heavy and semi-permanent shade of faded purple. I began to grocery shop like a …
After a late night out the Friday before Halloween, a long run in the morning and the scent of pad thai on Newbury Street in the afternoon, I came home craving brown rice in peanut sauce. I stood in the doorway and thought about the biology of food cravings, but quickly snapped out of it to scrounge my cupboards for ingredients. I aspire to cook without (printed) recipes like my mom does, so here was …
Well ladies and gents, it is that time of year again. The temperatures are getting cooler, the leaves are falling off the trees, and for thousands of fourth-year medical students, myself included, it is residency application and interview season. Fourth year year is a special time for all medical students. It means we are but mere months from achieving those oh-so-special added letters at the end of our names. It means no longer introducing yourself …
Into the room I hear him come. Above me, his head appears. Then, with blue plastic hands and a dangling toy, he starts poking at me. He lays his hands on my head, then wipes the goop from my face. He shines a light in my eyes and then in my mouth. He prods my neck, then holds the dangling toy against my chest—first here, then there, and listens. He squishes my belly, flips me on …
Medicine is difficult. It’s not that the road starts years in advance of medical school, taking difficult premedical courses, volunteering at hospitals or emergency services. It’s not the notorious competition and stress of simply being accepted to training. It’s not the life-consuming monster of training itself.
As medical students and soon-to-be future physicians, we are taught to be hopeful when it comes to our patients. We smile; we comfort. We tell patients to put their trust in us because we believe we can cure them. We not only heal with our hands, but also with our words—reassuring when there is doubt, bearing a beacon of light when there is darkness. But what happens when that hope fails to illuminate, and our …
To the man with flowers that I met on my way out of the ICU: You came up to me and told me how grateful you were to all of the doctors in this place, for how well they treated you and your wife. You were holding bright red, maybe pink and yellow flowers with gold ribbon in clear wrap. You had grey hair and a kind smile. I said something like, “That’s so wonderful, …
I quickly became acquainted with the practice of orthopedics during my childhood, as various boyish and overly rambunctious pursuits left me with over a dozen broken bones. Each break was relatively innocuous, at most fixed with some pinning; however, I became instantly aware of the gravity of orthopedic injury when my father broke his back on New Year’s Eve 2002. I was 14, and he was driving me to a friend’s house when we were …
With my Fisher-Price stethoscope drooping to my knees, I opened up my first practice as a young boy, working out of my family’s kitchen, my hours fluctuating with my nap schedule. I was a dragon-seeker bent on improbable rescues, and as I would fiddle with my tools, I would imagine a future where patients returned to my office full of life and gratitude. What I did not count on as a five-year-old—or even as a …
I watched the hospital room in its trickling display of lights—infusions, a ventilator and a monitor with its unrelenting beeping noises. This is what I had come to know of the intensive care unit. As doctors, we are told that we must live and work detached from our patients because emotions can cloud our judgement. But it is difficult to separate emotions when a patient who lies in a bed could be someone’s mother, someone’s wife or …
The nurse cracked open the door to say, “You have a visitor here to see you.” Abraham’s mother nodded, and the nurse turned to me in the hallway with words of permission to enter. I did so, hesitantly. The room was dimly lit by sunlight fighting its way through soggy clouds to shine on the window. The walls were covered with action heroes sprinting to save lives, while foil balloons hovering over the bed gave …
Chennai, India. “How are you feeling?” I asked an elderly woman in Tamil, the local language. She had recently been diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease at the hospital. I struggled to hide my excitement of finally being able to interact with an inpatient after three weeks of waiting for a “TB-free ward.” In the western world, we quarantine patients with tuberculosis; here they are one of the many patients in the general ward who are seen …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Hi! I am a Class of 2014 medical student at Georgetown University, with plans to pursue family medicine. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009 with degrees in chemistry and the history and philosophy of science, I moved to D.C. for medical school. I love D.C. because it has been an amazing place of opportunity for me to pursue my interests in health policy, underserved medical care, cultural awareness and education, and the arts. There is nothing that an open mind can't teach us, and writing is one of the greatest expressions of what we learn from the world, our experiences, and ourselves.
