Tag: clinical competency

Nabeel U. Ali Nabeel U. Ali (2 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Albany Medical College

Nabeel is a medical student at Albany Medical College in the Class of 2017; he is focused on impacting healthcare through innovative research and technology.




Doctor versus Algorithm: Which Would You Trust?

Published by Nabeel U. Ali

If your doctor and an algorithm arrived at two different diagnoses, which would you trust?  Of course, it depends on the specific context but this question opens a much needed discussion about a transformative process occurring in medicine: computers are beginning to perform tasks of physicians.  While modern medicine utilizes medical technology primarily as an aid for physicians, future technology may afford diagnostic capability that rivals that of humans. The question is, in what capacity …

In Their Shoes

Published by Valentina Bonev

I met a resident who advocated that all medical students should become patients and have the same procedures that they order for their patients performed on them à la the movie “The Doctor.” While I agree that being a patient offers perspective, I don’t agree that I need to have tertiary syphilis to understand how to interact with a patient facing the illness. We act as health care providers and now view the world in …

Competency-Based Medicine: Why it Matters and How it Will Affect You

Published by Jarna Shah

On October 4 – 5, 2013, the American Medical Association hosted the “Accelerating Change in Medical Education Conference” in Chicago, IL., bringing together leaders in the realm of medical education for discussions aimed at “closing the gap between current physician training and the needs of our evolving health care system.” In attendance were two in-Training editors, Emily Lu and Jarna Shah, who reported on the conference and offer their in-depth medical student perspectives on the …

Review of Systems

Published by Karan Desai

With my Fisher-Price stethoscope drooping to my knees, I opened up my first practice as a young boy, working out of my family’s kitchen, my hours fluctuating with my nap schedule. I was a dragon-seeker bent on improbable rescues, and as I would fiddle with my tools, I would imagine a future where patients returned to my office full of life and gratitude. What I did not count on as a five-year-old—or even as a …

On Becoming a Doctor: Excellent Medical Student, Terrible Clinician

Published by Amy Ho

There is a saying that you enter medical school wanting to help people but exit it wanting to help yourself. It may be a cynical view, but a realistic one. The criteria to being a good medical student are far different from being a good doctor. Medical education may be breeding a legion of self-serving, grade-grubbing, SOAP-note spewing machines rather than the “empathetic,” “compassionate” and “caring” physicians of admission essays yore. I was no different. …

An Unusual Case: Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS)

Published by Valentina Bonev

Believe it or not, but cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) is a real diagnosis. I will describe a patient I encountered who fits the classic description. The patient is a male in his 50s who presented to the emergency department with one week of intermittent vomiting and epigastric pain. He has a few of these episodes every year and was diagnosed with CVS during his previous hospitalization, but was unaware of his diagnosis. The current episode …

The Incompetence of Competence

Published by Andrew Petersen

It was 3 a.m. in the emergency room. I had the ultrasound probe in my hand and was searching for a 50-something-year-old man’s bladder. He had not been able to urinate for over 10 hours and was in terrible pain. I figured his bladder had to be the size of a basketball by now. I stared intently at the black and white fuzzy screen, trying to interpret the landmarks. I did not see the large …

Andrew Petersen (2 Posts)

Contributing Writer Emeritus

University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Andrew hails from Thousand Oaks, CA and studied psychology and integrative biology at UC Berkeley. He is now a Class of 2013 medical student at the University of Cincinnati and is planning to match into internal medicine.