Contributing Writer
Saint James School of Medicine
Leah Sarah Peer is a second-year medical student at Saint James School of Medicine. In 2018, she graduated from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec with a Bachelor of Science in biology and a minor in human rights. She is passionate about the intersection of health and human rights, and as an advocate for social justice and global health, she actively participates in community initiatives in her free time. After graduating medical school, Leah Sarah would like to pursue a career in emergency or humanitarian medicine.
I am calling for international solidarity and aid for Yemenis who are currently living in the worst conditions imaginable without clean water, food or shelter. Today in Yemen, there is war, an economic crisis, cholera outbreaks, the Chikungunya virus and COVID-19, all in the same country.
Sameera was an Iraqi refugee who had recently arrived from Tijuana, Mexico. She fled violence from what seemed like every corner of the globe, starting with Iraq, then to Yemen, Brazil, Mexico, and now to a small, bare and cold cell somewhere in southern California.
A medical student, to whom I will refer as X, posted on their social media page they were going to kill themselves. Their letter was direct, raw and, as many suicide notes tend to be, apologetic. They explained they felt they no longer had the strength to keep fighting; it was simply “time for them to go.”
When it comes to our younger family members, this means acknowledging their social as well as functional and emotional needs. With this in mind, we should consider three key principles as we focus on the mental health of our younger family members.
“Defund the police” has become one of the slogans of the protests shaking our nation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But what does this term truly mean, and could defunding the police be helpful for both the police and the health care community?
Interviewers who ask these questions in a professional setting typically consider these issues to be academic — purely topics for discussion that might provide useful insight into the way the applicant views the world. But for applicants who have been affected, these issues are not merely academic and their discussion can invoke significant emotional turmoil. So before we continue to tacitly accept this shift in interviewing, it is important to consider its purpose and impact on those being interviewed.
In a typical year, medical students have to pass this one final patient actor bonanza before they can become doctors. Like all other USMLE exams, Step 2 CS is eight hours long. However, this is the only Step exam that isn’t administered on a computer; rather, it’s offered at just five centers in the country, located in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, and Los Angeles.
It feels preemptive to discuss emergence while sitting in the living room where I’ve spent 15 hours a day for the past month — bradycardic afternoons mirroring the day prior. Yet each day the sun emerges, and we along with it, venturing out onto balconies and porches. As medical students, we take our pro re nata walks and remember to cross the street so our paths don’t intersect those of our neighbors.
Shortness of breath is a frustrating experience. The feeling of not being able to get air into the deepest parts of your lungs can be scary. Unfortunately, as COVID-19 spreads across the globe, more and more people are experiencing shortness of breath — one of the symptoms of the virus.
It has been two months since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. People are itching to return to “normal,” to break out of their so-called home confinement; however, what is it like to be a person in an actual prison, right now, stuck in a crowded confinement that extends before and after this pandemic?
As medical students, we marvel at the endless combinations of letters often embroidered on white coats representing physicians’ degrees and association affiliations: MD, MBBS, DO, PhD, MSc, MBA, MPH, MPP, MS, MTR, JD, MSHP and so on. This “alphabet soup” represents the important diversity that exists in our profession.
In order to flatten the COVID-19 curve, many people have been practicing social distancing and staying at home to avoid possible exposure to carriers and infected individuals. While these measures are necessary to slow the spread of the virus and keep the number of cases at a manageable level, they have several implications for mental health.
Contributing Writer
UC Riverside School of Medicine
Jennifer is a second year medical student at the UC Riverside School of Medicine. She graduated with an M.S. in Translational Medicine from the University of Helsinki in 2017 and a B.A. in Biochemistry from Smith College in 2014. Her professional interests include global and mental health. She enjoys traveling, reading, and baking during her spare time.
