Contributing Writer
Emory University School of Medicine
Cally is a fourth-year medical student at the Emory University School of Medicine who is applying into Ob/Gyn in the 2022-2023 cycle. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology. Her interests include climate change and environmental health, the relationship between language and culture, and reproductive justice.
Discussing women’s sexuality is uncomfortable. Sociocultural messages that portray the ideal woman as passive, soft and naïve belie our often-espoused values and institutional policies that support women’s rights, health and equality.
As many urban academic medical centers have become the world’s leaders in research and patient care, their bordering neighborhoods have suffered through decades of disinvestment and economic blight. Medical students often receive their first years of training in hospitals that serve these disadvantaged populations. While the current focus on social determinants of health represents a rising cornerstone of medical education, what else do medical students need to know about inner city poverty?
As I grew up, I felt these lines and had a vague idea of where they lay. I knew where in Louisville I felt “safe,” and I also knew where the “bad parts of town” were located. The lines and their forced labels serve to enhance the lives of some people, myself included, while limiting others. Two cities exist within one border separated by an undeniable feature — skin color.
Writers-in-Training Program Director and Contributing Writer
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Thomas Amburn is a third-year medical student at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington, Kentucky class of 2022. In 2015, he graduated from Transylvania University with a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry. Thomas is a Fulbright scholar and lived in Thailand after graduation for over a year. He enjoys caring for his plants, writing, and planning his next travel in his free time. Thomas will pursue a career in surgery as a general surgery resident at NYU.
