Contributing Writer
Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
John Damianos is a fourth year medical student at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, Lebanon, NH class of 2020. In 2016, he graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics and neuroscience and a minor in French. He enjoys playing tennis, cooking, and studying Byzantine chant in his spare time. After graduating medical school, John would like to pursue a career in internal medicine, eventually specializing in gastroenterology.
Perhaps the most damaging legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency so far has been the fake news phenomenon. When Trump at one of his first press conference as president-elect pointed at a CNN journalist and said, “You are fake news,” he was doing a lot more than complaining about a media highly critical of him.
Physicians are expected to understand and apply research in order to provide their patients with the best available care. To meet this growing demand, there has been an increase in the number of physician-scientists in biomedical research.
Conducting research in vulnerable populations and historically marginalized groups can be a delicate process, and because of this, safeguards intended to protect these exact groups can ultimately hinder the research process.
Imagine this: You’re trying to secure that bank loan to start your dream business and everything is working out just right, until the very last minute when you learn of a hard requirement that disqualifies you from securing your loan.
Like our casual life, medicine seems to be affected by social media, quick information exchange and so-called “influencers.” Gluten intolerance, chronic Lyme disease and fibromyalgia are common diseases that can be researched on the internet.
In an era where climate change has been variously described as ‘the great moral challenge of our generation’ to ‘absolute crap,’ it seems pertinent as future health professionals to have a look at the evidence and ask ourselves how this issue might come to affect the health of our prospective patients.
I was once asked if medical school is an unhappy place. It is a good question, the kind that it takes someone outside of medicine to ask.
As another ACA repeal looms in the near future — after ACHA and BCRA — the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (Graham-Cassidy) legislation makes me think back to a patient I took care of a few months ago.
With health care spending becoming an increasingly important topic, medical schools will have to find a way to integrate the fundamentals behind high value care earlier in the curriculum. Students should be familiar core economic principles and how they apply to health care before they are treating patients.
Mr. W is an elderly man currently enrolled in French classes, hoping that he will become more functionally independent as he improves. He frequently commented about forgetting what he would learn in class, explaining that his mind always wanders back to his family members who are now scattered everywhere and also back to Syria, the place that he once called home.
As a first-generation Singaporean American, I sometimes think about the stark contrast in richness between the age-old historical narratives of Asian countries and those of acculturated Asian Americans.
He was sick, but it wasn’t like he was going to die anytime soon. A year ago, my dog Sierra sustained a neurological insult that left him delirious, unable to walk straight and almost entirely blind and deaf.
Contributing Writer
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
I am a Philadelphia native and a medical student at Thomas Jefferson University class of 2018. I have interests in health systems, policy and population health. Through my training, I have witnessed how we deliver care under our current medical system. I enjoy exploring ways in which we, as future doctors, can make positive change. In my free time I enjoy the outdoors, playing music and eating good food with friends.
