Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
I am a Class of 2013 medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. In 2011, I earned a PhD in cancer biology through the Committee on Cancer Biology at the University of Chicago. I graduated from the University of Illinois in 2004; while there, I sang with a jazz a cappella group called No Strings Attached.
In 2007, I started the Pritzker Podcast, an online audio resource for premedical applicants. Medical education, technology, and photography also interest me greatly. I plan on a career in academic surgical oncology.
A little humor goes a long way with a lot of patients. The degree to which a positive attitude—on their part and ours—can help them get through a difficult time in their lives never ceases to amaze me. One patient came to us with massive lower extremity swelling and an EF of 15 percent. He was an inpatient for over a month and had a Foley catheter for more than three weeks. He had an …
It was 6:58 a.m. and it was my first day in the hospital as a third-year medical student. I was excited. I had my short white coat on and my pockets were full of little gems recommended by those more experienced than myself. As I found my team I saw the second-day-interns nervously preparing for rounds. I hoped my excitement was not too obvious. I could not believe I was about to round on real …
During my internal medicine rotation, I learned many things about medicine, and many things about patient care, and they are not always one in the same. By far the most influential piece of knowledge I will take away from this clerkship is the importance of clear verbal and written patient instructions and education, as well as the benefits of keeping patient care in a network of physicians.
I met a patient at preop for an elective sigmoid resection for a malignant mass in her colon. She had no previous surgical history. Unfortunately the patient was widowed and lived alone and had some understandable concerns about her recovery. She seemed anxious and a bit nervous about the procedure. I introduced myself before the surgery and tried to the best of my current ability to answer any questions she had. As we spoke, I …
The night flow team had picked up a woman in her late 60s with a history of diverticulosis presenting to the ED with bleeding from the rectum. She was scheduled for colonoscopy the next day and orders were placed for NPO (nothing by mouth) after midnight and GoLytely (bowel cleanser) to be finished within three hours before midnight. As a third year medical student, I picked up this patient the morning of her colonoscopy. She …
Every life is full of firsts. First steps. First words. First kiss. First love. First (and ideally only) marriage. For physicians in training, there is one other first that quite possibly ranks ahead of those other life milestones: the first real patient. Sure we’ve practiced on each other, on paid actors, and even on lifelike robot mannequins along the way, but at some point every medical student starts rotations. Rotations equal the first taste of …
Paternalism and medicine have a storied past that is difficult to grasp in the abstract. For me, the values of autonomy and beneficence were cemented on the day I ran my second marathon. After the first one, I remember being asked what the hardest part of the race was. “Every mile was harder than the last,” I replied. After that day I felt like I was in the best shape of my life, dampened only by having fallen nine minutes short of my goal. Resilient, I recovered for a week, trained for three and then raced again in the Indianapolis Monument Marathon.
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
John Dougherty is a medical student at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.
