Contributing Writer Emeritus
Wayne State University School of Medicine
I grew up in Los Angeles, California where I completed my undergraduate studies at UCLA with a BS in physiology. Currently I am a Class of 2013 medical student at Wayne State University. I am pursuing a career in emergency medicine. My future plans are to pursue a fellowship in global health and join Doctors Without Borders.
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.
