Contributing Writer
Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Kathleen is a third-year medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia. She is strongly interested in holistic and alternative medicine with a focus on primary care and is planning on pursuing a career in Family Medicine.
The topic of burnout is huge in today’s medical community. Multiple articles and studies have been published demonstrating that burnout is prevalent in all levels of medical training from the day-one medical student to the most senior practicing attending.
Ten male students crowded around a clean-shaven instructor who asked a series of questions. The students had meticulously prepared and would maintain close proximity to well-rehearsed answers. Hopefully the questions are simple, they thought. One by one, they answered, at times stumbling through their responses. This was expected. The students were learning and the incorrect answers allowed room for humility. Such a scene could easily describe an American teaching hospital, or, a Republican presidential debate.
Genomics has been having a field day with the press for the past couple years, and rightly so. New advances in the study of our genome have provided us with not just more information than we currently know what to do with, but also with new tools whose potential for the future seem to reach into the realms of science fiction. The possibilities and consequences of these new discoveries, from designer drugs to designer babies, has …
Four years ago I was sitting in the living room of my basement apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. Now I am a week away from starting my second year of medical school, and the opening ceremonies for the 2016 Rio Olympics are upon us as well.
When I started medical school, I was most excited to start learning again. Having spent the last couple years as a teacher in a classroom, I sorely missed the experience of being the student. Reflecting on my college days, I missed the intellectual conversations generated in our seminars, hours poring over literature under dimly lit alcoves of Sanborn Library, even the far-too-frequent all-nighters spent hashing through complex biochemical pathways with my study group.
The epidemics of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia roll through the US and across much of the world, eerily reminiscent to the sweeping cholera outbreaks of Snow’s era. Even in the majority of low- and middle-income countries, these chronic illnesses have already displaced infectious diseases to become the leading causes of death and disability. Yet, the majority of these are potentially preventable.
I walk down Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota this evening, and it is packed with people. People grieving, people chatting, people holding one another, people holding banners and people giving speeches. July 7, 2016: a black man named Philandro Castile had been killed barely twenty-four hours ago by a police officer.
During my first year of medical school, I had the privilege of speaking at several high schools and colleges. The purpose of these interactions was to shed light on what I did to matriculate into medical school, my experiences as a medical student, and to answer any questions. No matter where I went though, one question always followed: “What is the hardest part of medical school?”
As I write this article, 49 people have been confirmed dead after a mass shooting at a popular nightclub in Orlando, FL, with an additional 53 reported injured. In recent times, similar shootings have occurred with frightening regularity. In 2015 alone, we can recount San Bernadino, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Roseburg, Oregon; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Charleston, North Carolina. People are being killed in unprecedented numbers, yet we have a poor understanding of the disease that is taking their lives. Gun violence is now a concerning public health issue and it begs the question: where are the patient advocates?
A little while ago I had the privilege of sitting around a table with several other physicians and researchers to discuss a potential collaboration involving my thesis project. About two hours into the meeting, I realized that I was the only person in this room without at least one doctoral degree. Yet these incredible scientists with decades of experience had been treating me — a second-year grad student — as an equal.
A ubiquitous hierarchy pervades all levels of medicine. Medical students are anchored firmly at the bottom of medicine’s social ladder, rendering them functionally powerless. Although students theoretically have a “voice”, their precarious position low down makes them apprehensive to use it. Students’ grades, evaluations and recommendations, etc.– which have real, tangible impacts, not only on students’ academics, but also their future careers and lives — are contingent on appeasing those higher up on the so-called social ladder.
Traditional “clerkships,” as they are known, are two-to-eight-week-long clinical experiences in each of the many medical specialties taken during the third and fourth years of medical school. During these programs, students see patients and learn directly from the doctors responsible for their care. It’s a combination of structured didactic learning, self-directed experience and day-to-day grunt work. After the month-plus spent in, for example, neurology, students get comfortable thinking about common problems people seeing neurologists might have and the options for dealing with those problems … and then they move on to the next clerkship.
Contributing Writer
University of Minnesota Medical School
My name is Nate and I am in the Class of 2017 at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. Writing is an excellent release from the hustle and rigor of medical education. It is also an activity where I get to make the decisions, which is somewhat unfamiliar at my stage of training.
