Tag: choosing a specialty

Emma Spring Emma Spring (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

University of Michigan Medical School


Emma Spring is a first-year medical student at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan class of 2026. She enjoys going on long walks with her dog, crafting playlists, and writing. In the future, Emma would like to pursue a career in fetal surgery.




First Day

After our first week on clinical rotations, my third-year medical student colleagues laughed about the silly and awkward things that made their first days hard. Someone was shunned for bumping into the sterile field during their first operation. Someone else couldn’t figure out the scrub machines and was stuck mismatching for the day.

Letter to the Radiology Hopeful

My interest in radiology began, as it does for many, with the thrill of coming to a solution based on imaging and some sparse words on a patient’s chief complaint. Reading radiologic scans is like learning a language — a code composed of axial and coronal views, enhancing and nonenhancing areas and anatomical landmarks. When you dive into the millimeter slices of a contrast CT and the defect snaps to your attention, you are hooked. 

With USMLE Step 1 Changes, Earlier Planning is Key from a New Medical School

As a fourth-year medical student from a new medical school who just finished interviewing for ophthalmology residency, I can credit much of my interview season experience to intentional career planning and preparation early on. The ultimate impact of the upcoming changes to the USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail is yet to be fully determined. However, in my perspective, this monumental shift in medical education will place a greater emphasis on the need for thoughtful career planning earlier in medical school. 

The Interview as an Invitation

Freud supposedly understood himself as a surgeon of the mind, dissecting his patients’ mental anatomy through the process of psychoanalysis. I found this comparison appealing, so when I started the psychiatry clerkship in my third year of medical school, I approached the interview in psychiatry as analogous to a surgical procedure — efficient, scripted, precise.

Joseph Hodapp (2 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Medical College of Wisconsin


I am currently a third-year medical student at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I have been writing fiction since fourth grade, but medicine has given me a new lens through which to explore non-fiction, as well. I believe in the healing power of creating writing and self-expression. In the face of difficult training, tapping into my creativity helps to feed my soul and keep me in touch with the humanity that made me choose medicine in the first place.