Editor-in-Chief and Former Writers-in-Training Intern
Geisinger College of Health Sciences
Eshiemomoh Osilama is a medical student at Geisinger College of Health Sciences in Scranton, PA, Class of 2024. He graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in biology. He enjoys reading and writing poetry, baking, theater, singing, museums, traveling, beaches and oceans, photography, and being an extraordinary guncle. Momoh is pursuing a career in psychiatry.
Finally, it’s been three months since // He and I were strangers with bad blood, / breathless in bed, / discussing the acts of giving and / receiving as indulgences, / mulling over our motivations and / the contraindications for / charity.
It was a Friday morning at 4:30 a.m. and I was rushing to the hospital for pre-rounds. I was on my neurology rotation, and my pockets were heavy and stuffed with tools. My preceptor had texted me the room numbers of the patients I was to visit that morning. I had three patients to see in the hour before rounds — the first two patients I had been following every day this week and a third patient was a new admit from overnight.
Recently two prominent children’s hospitals have made unprecedented announcements. Boston Children’s Hospital and Chicago’s Laurie Children’s Hospital announced that they would stop performing certain surgeries on children born with intersex traits. These announcements come after huge direct efforts by advocacy groups like The Intersex Jusice Project, lead by Pidgeon Pagonis, and InterAct, a national intersex youth advocacy group.
On June 12, the Trump administration issued a Department of Health and Human Services rule that eliminated the protections transgender patients had under the Obama administration from discrimination by doctors, health care providers and hospitals. A few days later, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Bostock v Clayton County, which stated that LGBTQ individuals could not be discriminated against in the workplace.
Homelessness is a prominent concern among LGBT+ people, particularly the transgender community. Nearly one-third of the respondents who completed the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey reported homelessness at some point in their lives, with even higher rates (74%) among individuals whose families had rejected them.
The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality demonstrates the U.S. transgender community’s need for mental health services and unique barriers to care.
Writer-in-Training
University of South Carolina School of Medicine - Columbia
Lexi Dickson is a second year medical student at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, South Carolina class of 2022. In 2018, she graduated from the University of South Carolina Honors College with a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and molecular biology. She enjoys trying new restaurants, dancing, and traveling in her free time. Lexi is undecided on what specialty she would like to pursue after graduating medical school, but is interested in emergency medicine.
