Tag: humanism in medicine

Sumayya Mohammed (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

California University of Science and Medicine

Sumayya is a third year medical student at California University of Science and Medicine in Colton CA, Class of 2022. In 2017, she graduated from New Jersey Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Arts in biology. She then went on to UCSF to get a Masters in Global Health. She enjoys listening to podcasts, exploring coffee shops, and trying different art mediums in her free time. In the future Sumayya would like to pursue a career in neurology.




Essential Workers & Escapism

Published by Sumayya Mohammed

For better or worse, I have always partaken in escapism in one form or another. “Escapism,” defined as the practice of avoiding a difficult reality by immersing oneself in distraction or entertainment, is a concept that rose in popularity in the 1930s as a natural reaction to the Great Depression of the previous decade. Although I did not know it at the time, I have been practicing escapism since 2000 BC (before COVID). As the eldest daughter of immigrants who were new to the continent and busy building a life from scratch, I would get lost in stories from a very young age. I had little in the way of friends and even less of an interest in being popular, so naturally I was drawn to books to fill that emotional void; novels were the way to my heart — fantasy and fiction, oh my!

Doctor/Patient Patel

Published by Dolly Patel

My medical school career was complicated by more than just complex cardiac physiology or biochemical pathways. Little did I know that at the end of my second year I would go from knocking on a patient’s door during a clinical session, to sitting in an exam room myself.

Dissecting Anatomy Lab: Epilogue

Published by Kate Crofton

I no longer feel alone the way that I did the first few weeks of dissections, because now I recognize that my peers were sectioned off at their tables also worried that they were losing their sensitivity, that they weren’t good enough to belong, and they didn’t know how to cut into a person. I wish that I had known what my classmates were thinking and feeling during the anatomy course.

In Our Assessments We Trust

Published by Vinayak Jain

To understand the issue surrounding assessments, we must understand that it has become increasingly challenging to train physicians suited to face contemporary changes. To future physicians who have access to a repository of ever-expanding information on their smartphones, being tested on ‘high-yield’ minutia serves little purpose. Being able to think critically (and perhaps even imaginatively) in order to make sense of that information for patient care is what counts. And thus, no matter how standardized an examination is, lack of contextual reference renders it futile.

Dissecting Anatomy Lab: The Final Disposition

Published by Kate Crofton

Why would someone choose to donate their body to medical education? We have a dishonorable history in medicine of illicitly sourcing cadavers for dissection: robbing corpses from graves, murdering people for their bodies and salvaging the unclaimed dead from city hospitals and morgues. Today, we call the bodies we learn from “donors” instead of “cadavers” to honor their autonomy and personhood, their choice to be in the room. 

Taking a Wider View: A Medical Student’s Perspective on Reforming Obesity Medicine Training

Published by Shradha Chhabria

As physicians, we must work to lift patients up when they are struggling, rather than shaming them into well-being. As Dr. Donald Berwick once noted, it is not always patients’ diagnoses, but their helplessness that kills them. Indeed, the helplessness we instill through our focus on individualism and molecular pathology in the clinical setting will ensure that this epidemic kills millions prematurely and costs billions of dollars. If obesity is a disease caused by society — its inequities, trauma, and expectations — then the solution for obesity should address more than just the patient sitting in front of us.

Dissecting Anatomy Lab: The Lifecycle of Anatomy Instruction

Published by Kate Crofton

It is the day before the first anatomy lab for the first-year medical students, and a single professor walks alone, up and down rows of tables laden with 26 naked, embalmed bodies. He silently shares a few minutes with the donors, a private thank-you. Soon the donors will be covered in white sheets, and the students will tentatively spill through the locked wooden doors of the labs, a rush of anticipation, teamwork, questions and learning.

Tissue Paper Skin

Published by Coco Thomas

I believe these inadequate approaches circumvent the answer the interviewer is actually trying to provoke: are you self-aware enough to know your faults?

Every one of us is imperfect, fallible, and vulnerable to making mistakes. Being a strong physician requires self-reflection and awareness, and interviewers want to know if you are willing to be honest with yourself and others. I can’t tell you how to answer this question, but I can tell you how I did.

Course Correction: Growing Distrust in Physicians and Looking Ahead

Published by Faiz Saulat

As we seek to understand this phenomenon, there are many subjective variables that contribute to the trust between patients and providers. Measuring trust in a reliable and consistent fashion is challenging in itself. With these limitations in mind, three salient factors are involved in the decline of patient trust in physicians: one, a commodified health care system; two, lack of quality time spent with the patient; and three, racial influences on the patient-provider relationship.

cirque

Narrative in Cirque

Published by Amber Allen

When I was 17, I went to the gynecologist for a Pap smear because my mom said, “Once you have sex you have to get one.” It felt like punishment, but it was also the only way I had a chance of getting birth control. I went to three different doctors and exam after exam, they kept saying I could have cancer. I did a ‘colpo’ — whatever that is. After that, they did three different procedures on me, three, all to take pieces of my cervix. I don’t remember what they were called or what even happened. All I remember is the pain.

Amber Allen Amber Allen (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

University of Texas Southwestern

Amber Allen is a fourth year medical student at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, Texas Class of 2021. In the fall of 2016 she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science and Art in biology with a Bridging Disciplines certificate in children and society. In 2020 she graduated from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston with a Master of Public Health and a focus in epidemiology. She enjoys all genres of dance, traveling, and spending time with her two schnauzer puppies, Kado and Willow. After graduating from medical school, Amber would like to pursue a career in full-spectrum family medicine.