Contributing Writer
Tufts University School of Medicine
Sarah Tran (they/them) was born and grew up in southern California. They attended Pomona College and graduated in 2020 with a Neuroscience B.A. and an Asian American Studies minor. They are currently attending Tufts University School of Medicine as a MD/MPH student, set to graduate in 2025. Their interests include community and social justice, claiming to be a writer despite not having enough time to write, and watching reality television with their partner.
If someone asks me how my first year of medical school went, half of the time I dismiss them with a one-word answer, saving them from a conversation they aren’t ready to have. The other half of the time, I tell the truth, just to see what they have to say.
My health deteriorated as I started my second year in medical school. I suffered from intense nausea and abdominal pain, only getting four or five consistent hours of sleep per day. These health issues had started and worsened during the second year, eventually culminating in an emergency cholecystectomy.
My attention swung back and forth between my mom, my screen and the pairs of eyes periodically peering into the hospital room. I focused on the next question on my screen. Another patient had expired as if they were a carton of milk left too long in the fridge.
“Welcome, everybody, to the last module of your second year.” I froze. There was no way. I pulled up Google calendar on my laptop in the increasingly warm lecture hall. Oh my gosh, they were right!
My sister is nine years older than I am. We went to different high schools and currently live over 500 miles apart.
During one of my first patient encounters at the clinic, I remember a young and seemingly indifferent patient come in with earbuds plugged in her ears. Her hands tightly grasped the arms of the exam chair as she anxiously awaited the arrival of the clinic optometrist.
The pungent odor of formaldehyde permeates through the room and I can smell it through my mask and face shield. I am leaning over the body I am dissecting, trying to identify structures as the instructor appears before our tank, armed with a grading pen and a barrage of questions.
When we approached his room, Craig was wedged in the doorway, sitting on his walker angled towards the nurse’s station. It was the first time I had set foot in a hospital as a medical student; the task was to simply chat with a patient for about forty minutes. “Craig?” one of the nurses called out. “Yep! I am Craig, at least I was before I got in here!” he replied. Something about the enthusiasm in his voice appealed to me, so I sat down next to him and struck up a conversation.
One of the most impactful influences on my decision to become a doctor was meeting a patient with multiple sclerosis (MS). I was 19 years old and a hospital volunteer in Michigan. As I was replacing gloves, gowns and towels in my department, I entered the room of an elderly Eastern-European woman.
While I maneuvered through my first block of medical school, I felt emboldened by how well my undergraduate studies and extracurriculars prepared me for the transition. With that being said, Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) snuck in on its Trojan horse and presented me with a very unexpected challenge.
Open sewage ran beside homes made of handmade brick in Pau da Lima. My path to this favela, like my journey in medicine, felt unconventional. I realized microbes may have coincidentally been the root of my decision to pursue a career in medicine.
I remember hearing an important piece of advice: “If you are passionate about something, you will make time for it in medical school.” This advice, however, was soon countered by a snarky follow-up: “It is not that you did not have time for it; you did not make time for it.”
Contributing Writer
Medical College of Georgia
Rishab Chawla is a first year medical student at Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, GA class of 2024. In 2019, he graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He enjoys reading, going outdoors, and learning new languages on Duolingo in his free time. After graduating medical school, Rishab would like to pursue a career in psychiatry.
