Contributing Writer Emeritus
East Tennessee State University James H. Quillen College of Medicine
My education includes a BS in biology from Whitworth University, a MPH from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and an MD from East Tennessee State University. In addition to family medicine, my interests include Christian apologetics and French, British, and American literature.
Who is the black female? Is she lovely, sassy and strong? Who is she in comparison to the 70 kilogram white male upon which certain assumptions are made? What do I need to know about her to be an agent for her health and wellness? And furthermore, what is the tie that binds Michelle Obama, Zoë Saldana and Sybrina Fulton? Power, beauty and poverty walk with the various races and colors in a seemingly desultory …
Rebecca Garden, in her article “Disability and narrative: new directions for medicine and the medical humanities” wrote that “rather than coping with or overcoming their impairment, many disabled people see their impairments as integral to their lives.” This message regarding new directions in medicine for working with people with disabilities may sometimes be overlooked despite its importance. I would like to share a personal story that illustrates this point. I’ve been short all my life–but not short enough …
Editor’s note: This article was originally published here by contributing writer Paul Thomas. Stress in medicine is a topic that often comes up in the medical literature, in the popular press and in our own interpersonal experiences. But what does stress management look like for a young physician in training? And what are large health systems doing to promote stress management among their employees? This week, I had the good fortune of attending a one-hour session on …
While this is a serious essay and I should probably first allude to a great literary work, I’ll just keep it real and reference Inception. There’s a fantastic scene in which Ellen Page has her first go at building a dream. She builds a cityscape with ease and is quickly bored. With a spark in her eye she remarks: “What happens when you start messing with the physics of it all?” Likewise, we are questioning …
A 28-year-old woman with acute joint pains attends a clinic in Switzerland after returning from Mauritius. A 66-year-old man develops severe myalgias in Hong Kong after returning from Africa. These clinical cases summarize one disease: Chikungunya. Chikungunya–linked neither to chickens nor to the deadly avian flu–means in the Tanzanian dialect Makonde ‘that which bends up,’ referring to the stooped posture of afflicted patients. This nonfatal viral illness transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, which started as an urban phenomenon, …
Organ shortage is a serious problem in the United States. About 20,000 organ transplants occur every year in the U.S., and 116,689 Americans are currently on a waiting list for an organ, with kidneys being the most needed. The obesity epidemic is contributing to the shortage; a quarter of prospective donors are too obese to donate their kidneys. People typically wait 3-5 years for an organ, and thousands die every year (an average of 18 …
The body of students being admitted to medical school has changed drastically in recent years as institutions are trying harder to find students who are well-rounded. As a result, the coming years will witness the birth of a whole new breed of doctors. The question I will address is what this change will mean for the practice of medicine. One major change seen in students admitted to medical school is their undergraduate course of study. …
In histology, we are taught that ‘structure dictates function.’ It is a simply stated phrase that tells medical students to think about how the structure of a tissue determines what its role is in the human body. Does it secrete substances? Is it involved in mechanical abrasive stress? Does it have a large layer of muscle? Of collagen? Many ducts? Extensive folding of the epithelium? These questions, answered entirely by staring at a slide of …
What is the role of research in medicine? While it is impossible to quantify, it is important to analyze if we are to continue expending countless hours and money into the medical sciences. Some have argued that the two should not and cannot mix in the first place. Paul De Kruif spends chapters in Our Medicine Men trying prove that the entities of science and that of medicine should be left separate, and that the …
When he visited UAB last year, Abraham Verghese opened his talk with the statement that if one no longer read fiction, the brain would die. His strong words offered reassurance that at least some medical professionals value literature. Further, the statement suggested that he makes time for it and would allot time for it for others. Indeed, at Stanford, he spends his afternoons brainstorming within a thinking room instead of a laboratory. Verghese’s declaration also …
While watching one of my favorite television medical shows recently, I came across a line — uttered fast and so obviously not meant to draw attention — yet it had the opposite effect. I heard one of the attendings tell a resident or student, “Continue if you’d like.” I think my fixation is a bit more understandable if I set the scene: There was a trauma in the ER. A patient was carted in on a …
I wrote this reflection several months ago when I was working at a health nonprofit serving the Vietnamese community in San Jose, California. Though at first glance it may not relate directly to medicine, a lot of the things I was ruminating on apply to our work as future docs. Plus, this publication is sort of new, so I thought I’d stretch the scope of what is considered “relevant” or “appropriate,” both on in-Training and in medicine …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
VyVy Trinh is a Class of 2016 medical student attending Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Before entering medical school, VyVy spent a year working as a teacher in summer and after-school programs in her native Bay Area, California.
