Columnist
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Katie is a Class of 2016 student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.
Pleural Space
Pleural Space looks at the experiential curriculum of medical school, the many things that are taught and learned that aren’t listed in a syllabus.
She asked me if I was from New York. I told her I wasn’t. I was from California, actually, but enjoying myself in New York City while I was here. I asked her where she grew up. She said Brooklyn. She asked to see my referral card. I asked her to clarify. She said she wanted to see my referral card. For coming here. And did the super know I was here? Where was my card?
The position of an M0.5 is a very paradoxical one. We’ve gone through five months of class, amazed that our brains can fit in so much material and even more amazed that we have to make room for more. We’ve gotten our white coats and try to ask patients smart questions while having no idea what solution we can provide for the ailments being enumerated. Our goal at this point is not to diagnose — it’s to learn as much information as we can so that somewhere down the long, long line, we’ll be able to utilize what we know and make something of it.
“What can you do here that we can’t do at home?” This question angered my resident. How dare a patient admitted to the hospital ask for justification of their plan? The progress note had already been written and orders entered; assent to the plan was assumed and having to walk the patient through the options would extend rounds considerably. What an inconvenience.
How can doctors-in-training get the support they need to get through difficult personal experiences? Mia, a fourth-year medical student from Pennsylvania who intends to become a hematologist, describes the devastating situation she endured when her best friend died during her second year in medical school. She also comments on the complications of treating people in hematology.
How can doctors-in-training not lose touch with the importance of forming relationships with patients as they continue in their training? Sasha, a fourth-year medical student who plans to go into neurology, expresses her concerns about sustaining an ideal model of patient care. She also shares how she deals with the emotions that practicing medicine triggers.
Challah bread is traditionally prepared for Jewish holidays and the Sabbath. We made ours on a Wednesday night. Helen and Marie stare warily from their wheelchairs as a dozen medical students file into the retirement home lounge, toting tubs of flour and challah dough. “We’re not playing bingo?” Helen asks, looking disappointed, as students and octogenarians begin matching up for the evening.
How can doctors-in-training allow their personal experiences with loss and death to inform how they practice medicine? John, a fourth-year medical student in Philadelphia intending to become a psychiatrist, reflects on how his father’s long-drawn demise from Alzheimer’s influenced him.
How can doctors-in-training honor a patient’s experience as unique and significant, even as they become accustomed to witnessing suffering? Katie, a third-year medical student in New York who also holds a MFA in oil painting, shares some of the worries and questions she is grappling with on rotations.
I worked my last shift in the emergency department as a medical student last week. A few hours in, I walked to the chart rack and grabbed the next patient to be seen. I walked into the room in question and introduced myself in that fluid, simple way I’d perfected over thousands of encounters over the previous few years. “Hi, I’m Sarab Sodhi, the fourth-year med student on the team. What brings you in to see us?” …
How can doctors-in-training learn to relate to their patients in order to practice humanistic medicine? Aryanna, a fourth-year medical student in Texas going into family medicine, remembers a patient who showed her how much she could offer beyond physical medicine. She also reflects on how her multi-ethnic identity has influenced her journey in health care.
I walk around, wide-eyed yet confused. It seems so different. I always thought I was too objective for my art friends and too subjective for my science friends. But was that really an accurate reflection of my own personality? Medicine is about reductionism, objectivity and straightforwardness. In medical school, I’m learning a method of communication in which empathy is taught as a route to finding out more about a patient; it’s conveniently called the patient-centered …
How can doctors-in-training act in accordance with their values through the challenging medical school experience? Bit, a first-year medical student with a background in positive psychology and an interest in studying empathy in clinical contexts, describes how she entered medical school with skepticism, yet has found ways to maintain her commitment to compassion.
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.
