Contributing Writer
Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Mackenzie Mayhew is a fourth year medical student at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, FL Class of 2022. In 2018, she graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. She enjoys watching college football, crafting, and working out in her free time. After graduating medical school, Mackenzie would like to pursue a career in general surgery followed by a fellowship in transplant surgery.
It was obvious that something was off. His mood was not what I would expect from a patient who had received a transplant, which for many patients represents a second chance at normalcy and freedom from the restrictions of dialysis. As we started our trek out of the SICU, my attending continued to tell me Mr. W’s story.
Huh? Just like that, my confidence took a nosedive. Jeff could have spoken to me in Mandarin, and I would have been no better off in understanding what he had just said. Suddenly, I felt very small in my new white coat. Rhinorrhea sounded pretty severe. How dumb would I sound if I asked Jeff how long the patient had to live? I thought.
I learned English out of necessity — not only for myself but also for my family. I grew up in Mexico and moved to a small Northern California town at the age of eight. When we moved to the United States, I was placed in an English-speaking classroom with no one who spoke Spanish. Necessity forced me to learn English quickly and, as a result, I became my family’s unofficial interpreter, including at their medical appointments. It was the necessity that forced me to learn how to fill out official paperwork in English, how to navigate social services after my sister was diagnosed with autism and how to speak with physicians and nurses.
For current third-year students across the country, the pandemic hit at a notably unstable moment in our lives. Mere months after many of us began medical school in new localities amongst new communities, all was suddenly fragmented.
There is a darkness that lingers above. / Alive and breathing, / Short shallow breaths.
On Monday morning, a medical assistant finds me with a nasal swab in hand. I scribble my signature and temperature on the form he hands me. “Ready, Maria?” he asks, and then laughs when I groan in response. I tilt my head, close my eyes and wait for the worst part to be over. After 15 minutes of waiting in the student workroom, he tells me I am COVID-19 negative and set for the week.
Before starting medical school, buried in a list of to-do tasks, I was asked to submit my Meyers-Briggs personality inventory. I was no stranger to this string of four letters, as I had performed the assessment many times in my life. I didn’t need to take the test again to know what I would get: INFJ.
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.
It is Wednesday afternoon and I have one last annual visit for the day. As I enter the room, a slender 27-year-old woman wearing a white t-shirt and baggy blue jeans sits in the chair across from me.
In this Q&A, we feature the founder of MedEd Models Dr. Timothy Dyster. Currently a fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Dyster also serves as a resident editor for the Journal of Graduate Medical Education and is the lead contributing editor for the first edition clinical handbook, Huppert’s Notes. He shares his thoughts on medical education and advice for medical students looking to foray into this field.
I was the student on the pediatric surgery service consulted to monitor her during her hospital stay — making sure we were ready to intervene if her esophagus ruptured and all that. After admitting her to the floor, we attempted to contact her parents. Mom was somewhere in Illinois, Dad doing I-still-don’t-know-what in Canada, both completely unaware that the life they each helped create was potentially in jeopardy at a Southeast Michigan hospital.
“What about my sugars?” she asked. In all honesty, since she was not hypoglycemic, I had not examined her specific blood glucose level or hemoglobin A1c too closely. Scrolling through the extensive list of her lab results, I spotted them and felt a knot form in my stomach.
Contributing Writer
Florida International University
Lisa is a fourth year medical student at Florida International University in Miami, Florida class of 2022. In 2014, she graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science neuroscience. She enjoys learning about nutrition, developing new recipes, and listening to rewatch podcasts. After graduating medical school, Lisa would like to pursue a career in combined medicine/psychiatry.
