Contributing Writer
University of Florida
Ansh Shah is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, Class of 2027. When he is not playing sports or engaging in his community, he likes to read and gather knowledge surrounding a variety of topics. Ansh aspires to some day attend medical school and become a diagnostic radiologist.
Ever since I could remember, I stood out in my class for all the wrong reasons. I was the kid who dangled his feet from chairs while others rested their feet flat, the kid forced to stand in the front during class photos and the kid who always had his height checked by the ride operator during field trips to the local amusement parks.
There has been limited to no coverage regarding what it’s like to get sick during this time and to enter the health care system without knowing if your condition is related to the pandemic. I envisioned it to be a frightening situation with much grey area, and then I endured it myself.
Although I’ve spent only a mere two and a half years as a student in this world of medical education, it’s readily apparent that I fit into very few of the “typical medical student” patterns. I’m part of a small cohort of dual degree students. I’m nontraditional, having never considered becoming a physician until after I graduated from college in 2013. And I am a disabled woman.
When I was told I had a mass in my chest, I was shocked. Like most people who are told that they have cancer, I was blindsided. But it was even more shocking because I had been going to multiple doctors over a period of six months complaining of pain in my chest, right arm, and right shoulder.
This is the conclusion of the two part series of Yichi Zhang’s experience as a patient in China’s emergency medicine system.
In part one of this two-part series, Yichi Zhang recounts his experience as a patient in China’s emergency medicine system.
My friend sat dutifully by my side in the squeaky plastic chairs of the emergency department waiting room. She tried her best to subtly come up with conversation ideas to keep me talking; our misguided belief in the old wives’ tale about keeping a person with a concussion awake showed how much more we had to learn.
During my last visit home, my mother waited less than an hour before showing me her medical records. She offered them up the way I’d once presented my middle-school report cards, steering the papers across our kitchen table between bowls of peppercorn chicken and eggplant until they slid to a stop in front of me. Looking at them made my head spin, as they were written almost entirely in Chinese.
I underwent my first transsphenoidal hypophysectomy, fully believing in the capabilities of my neurosurgeon, who had years of experience and training from a reputable institution, hoping that my surgery would be a success and cure me of Cushing Disease, which had turned my life upside down in its course the past half year.
In this column, I hope to explore various qualities of a physician that we learn through medical school experiences — whether it be through class, shadowing, research, or even interacting with peers — but also to introduce a patient’s perspective in each case. Midway through my junior year of college, I was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease, a rare endocrine disorder that affected every aspect of my life. Throughout the next year and a half, I lived as a patient of my disease, while simultaneously trying to hold onto my plans and aspirations of becoming a physician.
Ms. Romero is an otherwise healthy medical student who was transferred to the MICU with acute liver failure; isoniazid toxicity. Crystal had a positive PPD screening, negative chest x-ray and started therapy for potential LTBI. After seven weeks the patient felt fatigued, anorexic, jaundiced, RUQ abdominal pain, and was found to have elevated LFT’s & INR. She was originally admitted to INOVA for observation, but was transferred to Medstar Georgetown University Hospital MICU and worked …
How can doctors-in-training incorporate lessons from their own health experiences into the care of their patients? Brieze, a fourth-year medical student at Mt. Sinai, shares about the serious health issues she had as a child which led her to explore integrative approaches to healing that she now offers to both her patients and fellow health care providers.
Curator of Inside Stories and in-Training Staff Member
Columbia University
Annie Robinson completed a Master of Science in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University in 2014. She previously studied the healing power of stories as an undergraduate at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Annie works as Narrative Coaching Specialist with Eating Disorder Recovery Specialists, helping individuals in the early stages of eating disorder recovery through mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and narrative practices. She is also the Program Officer at Health Story Collaborative, a non-profit that creates forums for individuals to tell their stories of personal health challenges, and curates another oral narratives projects called On the Road to Recovered: Voices from the Eating Disorder Recovery Community.
Annie is a coordinator and full-spectrum doula for The Doula Project in New York City, providing compassionate care for women during experiences of abortion, miscarriage, and fetal loss.
As a yoga teacher, writer, educator, and co-founder of NYC-based wellness community Pause, Breathe, and Connect, Annie shares her passion for integrative approaches to wellbeing. She is dedicated to creating spaces for people to explore the healing potential of interweaving of stories, spirituality, and somatic experience.
Inside Stories
Inside Stories is an oral narratives project which invites medical students to share their experiences in medical school in the form of brief podcasts published and archived on in-Training. The project aims to provide a means of personal healing, self-realization and empowerment through the sharing and receiving of personal stories, as well as to cultivate community among students in the often isolating medical school environment. The title Inside Stories reflects the project's mission to encourage students to go inside themselves and bring forth things that often go unspoken. It also represents the inside look listeners are granted into the sometimes private, challenging and confusing experiences students may have.
Made possible in part by a grant from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation and FJC.
