Contributing Writer
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Maria is a second year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, class of 2022. In 2018, she graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Arts in biology and Hispanic studies. She enjoys traveling, reading, exploring the city, and trying new foods in her free time. After graduating medical school, Maria would like to pursue a career in pediatrics or emergency medicine, with an emphasis on global health.
I was sitting in on a patient visit with the attending physician and a senior medical student, and I could tell that both of them were trying to guide him back on track as gently as possible.
She put down her drink, the corners of her mouth dropped slightly. “Oh, so a Caribbean medical school. What happened? You couldn’t get into a U.S. school?”
When contemplating a career in medicine as either a nurse practitioner (NP), physician assistant (PA) or physician, I entered unwittingly into a landmine of opinions tainted with undertones of interprofessional resentment.
Children raised in foster homes tend to have a high morbidity. They have developed a similar prevalence of serious physical and mental problems comparable to those of other disadvantaged children populations.
On Wednesday, September 20, 2017, after an already uncharacteristically volatile hurricane season, Hurricane María made landfall on the island of Borikén (“Puerto Rico” in the indigenous Taíno language).
Do-it-yourself (DIY) medicine is particularly appealing to those who wish to take their health into their own hands and remove costly, time-consuming physicians from the equation. Crucial, however, is the fact that these companies are independently run and thus are not regulated by any governing scientific body.
The news as of late reflects the dystopian status of present-day health care. Numerous states have stripped away fundamental reproductive rights by criminalizing abortion with ruthless disregard for anyone capable of becoming pregnant.
In 2006, India Arie released a self-empowering song called “I am not my hair.” For women of color, this song became an anthem that empowered and permitted a level of self-identity that challenged societal norms.
Medical schools have an interest in advocating that their medical students pursue research in order to prepare them for careers in academia.
My former pediatrician always had the brightest smile. She was an effervescent “people-person.” Between her and episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, I always thought that all physicians were outgoing butterflies flapping back and forth between patients and their vibrant social lives. Physicians are usually depicted as extroverts, and medicine a profession of the people.
In the middle of my second year of medical school, I began noticing early signs and symptoms of burnout. The stress, anxiety and diminishing joy terrified me because I wondered: How could I already be burned out when I had not even studied for Step 1 or started rotations at the hospital? Were there any remedies to what I was experiencing?
Charity Scott, JD and professor of law at the Georgia State Catherine C. Henson School of Law, stood at the front of our medical school lecture hall with her arms stretched wide. “The welfare of a pregnant mother?” she said as she dipped one arm down, burdened by an invisible weight. “Or the welfare of an unborn child?”
Writer-in-Training
Emory University School of Medicine
Zaynah Alam is a member of the Class of 2021 at Emory University School of Medicine. She grew up in Chapel Hill, NC and has a BS in Neuroscience from Duke University. Her interests include science fiction, health as a human right, and eating at every pho restaurant in the city of Atlanta.
