Contributing Writer
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Samuel is a medical student at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island class of 2027. In 2021 he graduated from Macalester College with a Bachelor of Arts in neuroscience. He enjoys playing tennis, running and traveling in his free time. After graduating medical school, Sam would like to pursue a career in neurology.
It was just like any other screening visit and I had already organized the clinical trial documents in preparation for the patient’s arrival. The moment that the electronic medical record refreshed to show that our 9 a.m. patient arrived, I knew it was my cue.
I agree that protesting is best done in peace, / But wasn’t that tried by taking a knee? / Or hashtags that said Black Lives Matter, / And praying that change would come with the chatter.
The histories of Fox Point and Brooklyn reveal how where we call home is deeply intertwined with identity, power and privilege. They tell the story of structural racism — a patterned, “normative, sometimes legalized” process by which communities of color are marginalized. The sequelae of structural racism have dire health implications at the neighborhood-level.
FQHCs serve complex patients, many with multiple comorbidities that have worsened due to lack of health care, health insurance or distrust of the health care system.
Understanding the origins of words is helpful in medicine. “Genu” and “corpus” are Latin for knee and body, respectively. “Hippos” is Greek for “horse” and “kampos” for “sea monster.” (Can you tell I am in a brain sciences block)?
Growing up in an Asian American immigrant household, I frequently encountered and grappled with my parents’ reserved manner of expressing themselves. Instead of using words to communicate their sadness or anger, my parents would barricade themselves in their room and refuse to say a word.
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.
Post-election, many of us in the medical field have become ever more aware of the somber sentiments expressed by the groups that were rhetorically and literally targeted throughout the election cycle. Many of us are women, immigrants, people of all faiths, people of color, refugees, disabled individuals and members of the LGBT community. We understand that policies and hateful rhetoric impact us, impact our colleagues, impact our families and impact our patients. We can see how the communities we serve have already started to be affected by this election.
Contributing Writer
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Vaidehi Mujumdar is a medical student at Wake Forest School of Medicine. An alumna of Dartmouth College, her writing has been published in The Guardian, The Almost Doctors Channel, The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, India.com US Edition, Media Diversified, and others. Follow her on Twitter @VeeMuj.
