Contributing Author Emeritus
Georgetown University Hospital
Dr. Kaitlyn Dykes is an Internal Medicine resident at Georgetown University Hospital, in Washington DC. She completed medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and was a part of the clinical research tract. She completed her bachelors of science in Genetics, Cell Biology and Cell Development with a minor in Art History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She her most recent research is in the field of hematology oncology. Additionally she is actively involved in medical education. Hobbies include reading, painting, visiting museums (when they are open), and enjoying time with friends and family. She hopes to pursue a career in hematology-oncology.
Not sure? Uncomfortable? The popular advice is it to just “fake it until you make it.” Since starting medical school, I have heard students repeat the phrase frequently as a way to grapple with novel and occasionally unsettling situations, as well as the extensive amount of knowledge we are expected to rapidly acquire and apply.
His eyes are hidden beneath a pair of shades. I wish I could see them. A tweed cap, or as I like to think of it, a “grandfather” cap, covers his head. He leans his back against the chair with his hands resting on a cane.
Each time we came in for our Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) Medical Clinic, we never knew what to expect. IMANA clinic is a community-based project led by the Albany Medical College Family Medicine Office that connects medical students to the local Muslim population through screening and education clinics at Masjid As-Salaam. This masjid is the central prayer space and community support for many of Albany’s Muslims. The unique quality of this service-learning program is its emphasis on cultural competency and understanding the role of spirituality in medical care.
During our medical training, taking a proper history and doing a thorough clinical examination within a limited time period are the two skills that we are expected to master perfectly. Our teachers tell us that a good history gives you 75 percent of your diagnosis and the clinical examination gets you 90 to 100 percent of the diagnosis.
One of the most oft repeated complaints I heard from patients during my internal medicine rotation was, “I can’t sleep.” From early morning rounds to beeping lights to the health conditions that brought them to the hospital in the first place, it’s no wonder that a good night’s rest is hard to come by in the hospital.
“My rheumatologist was the one who told me I have cancer because for nine months we thought my back pain was due to a type of arthritis. He felt really bad about it and when he called me to tell me the diagnosis, he started crying on the phone.” A student in my second-year medical school class says this when we are in the big lecture hall for a class presentation on how to give …
One of the biggest challenges medical students face is finding their voice: with their medical team, with the hospital staff, with patients, and with their chosen specialty. As a medical student, you want to be proactive, to advocate for the patient, and to learn the best management techniques. But ‘proactive’ for one physician can easily be ‘annoying’ for another physician. Likewise, what can be viewed as ‘lack of initiative’ by one physician is ‘eager to …
Last spring, I saw my first real patient. The plan was to go into an exam room and take the history and physical of a real patient who had graciously offered to sacrifice half of his day. A doctor would watch everything and give feedback. The intimidating fact that I was being monitored made me feel like I was about to go on stage in front of an audience. If you had followed me into my …
[ca_audio url=” http://in-training.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/03-Wake-Up-Everybody-feat.-Common-Melanie-Fiona.mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player” autoplay=”false”] Two interesting opinion pieces published a few months ago inspired me write this column: one from Tal Fortgang, a Princeton freshman defending his “white man privilege,” and another from Max Ritvo explaining what exactly that white man’s privilege is. To summarize their points, the former author laments that his academic success is shadowed by society attributing his successes to being genetically a white man. As a result, society believes …
“You know, the globus pallidus.” My coaxing words ripened in the air between us. Josh admitted it sounded familiar, but couldn’t quite remember the time or the place. This concerned me, because my friend was a highly accomplished emergency physician, yet he wrinkled his nose at “globus pallidus” like it was a piece of decomposing fruit. “It’s in the brain,” I said helpfully. He smiled, “That’s probably why it sounds familiar.” A few hours before, …
When I told people I was going to medical school, the first thing I’d hear was, “Oh, you’ll be a good doctor.” As an idealistic and energetic first-year, I was flattered every time a standardized patient complimented me. But I wasn’t a good doctor — I don’t even have an MD. I was exposed to esoteric subjects like biochemistry and physiology, but I wasn’t much help to any person in distress. I believed, like my …
Medical training prides itself on being an art, never simply a black-and-white field where answers to increasingly complex health questions are merely algorithmically derived. It follows then that the only way for medical knowledge to transcend this rigid, computational process is through the accumulation of clinical experience, which over enough time should inform our intuition to the point where we become masters of navigating a sea of grays. This archetype is classically understood to be …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine
I am a Class of 2016 medical student at the Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine interested in ethics, politics and medical anthropology.
