Writer-in-Training
An-Najah National University, Palestine
Duha Shellah is sixth year medical student at An-Najah National University, Palestine. Duha is the chief executive officer (CEO) & Founder of the research community of Palestine ”The Researchist". She is an Elsevier Student Ambassador. Duha is a Student Editor & Palestine Ambassador at the International Journal of Medical Students. She has been assigned as an Associate Editor and Director of Recruitment HPHR Journal (Formerly Harvard Public Health Review). Also, Duha is Country Coordinator at the International Youth Alliance for Family planning (IYAFP). She is intern writer at In-Training Magazine. Newly, She got the membership of Committee of Publications Ethics (COPE).
Nationally, Duha, is an ambassador for the Palestinian Forum for medical Research and the third undergraduate Research conference - Al Quds University. Duha is a founder member in Palestinian women in surgery community here in Palestine
Making the choice to study medicine in my homeland is a momentous undertaking, with a surrounding fragile health system deficient of medical supplies and in shortage of expertise. Through this series of articles, I will share my experiences and perspectives on being a medical student in Palestine.
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.
She sat on her bed in a bright magenta shirt covered in glittery animals, with her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her green eyes were trained on the muted television broadcasting Disney cartoons, and her bed was strewn with coloring books and crayons. This scene looked quite different from the other overdoses we had been consulted on. Still, our attending calmly walked up to her bedside, introduced our bustling team and asked the universal question,
Like many medical students, I am familiar with the antiparasitic medication ivermectin, a common drug taught in medical school. Ivermectin became an unexpected subject in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after seeing a patient in the clinic taking ivermectin as an alternative to vaccination, the news hit differently.
On a search for / assurance, / I was sat across / the Intrepid
We often find inspiration in our ability as humans to create anew. I too fall prey to the promises of New Year resolutions and birthday candles, beckoning to us with the allure that our future rests in our hands.
Recently two prominent children’s hospitals have made unprecedented announcements. Boston Children’s Hospital and Chicago’s Laurie Children’s Hospital announced that they would stop performing certain surgeries on children born with intersex traits. These announcements come after huge direct efforts by advocacy groups like The Intersex Jusice Project, lead by Pidgeon Pagonis, and InterAct, a national intersex youth advocacy group.
My first day in the morgue was a shock to the system — the smell of death, the sight of rigor mortis and the comfort of everyone around me with the task at hand. I thought my prior health care experience prepared me for this, but it clearly did not.
A man sleeps in the sun on a bench across from the hospital. On the bench diagonally opposed, across and beside him, an almost-doctor eats cold noodles.
Mr. K had been admitted with dehydration and malnutrition secondary to diarrhea in the setting of HIV. During his stay, he developed refeeding syndrome. When the resulting electrolyte imbalances paved the way for cardiac arrhythmias, he coded twice in the ICU. The care team managed to bring him back each time, but not without consequence; the brutality of numerous cycles of CPR left him with multiple rib fractures, inflicting him with sharp pain every breath.
And with scientific advancements came cures and treatments that the healers of antiquity could have never imagined. However, these advances came at the cost of appreciating a holistic approach to health. How pitiful is it when a profession which was once completely focused on healing the whole person must now devote entire conferences and countless seminars to finding ways of injecting that back into both its practitioners and the people they serve?
It is not uncommon for transgender and gender non-binary individuals to be misgendered by health care providers or in the health care setting. This negatively affects their health and their relationship with their providers. Leaders in the field of transgender and non-binary health care recommend asking about a person’s pronouns and integrating pronoun introductions into the clinical setting.
Writer-in-Training
Boston University School of Medicine
Nat is a fourth-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine in Boston Massachusetts, class of 2021. In 2017 they graduated from Hendrix College with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. They will be applying into psychiatry this year and are currently interested in becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Besides writing, in their free time they enjoy skateboarding, traveling, and trail running.
