Contributing Writer
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Genevieve is a second year medical student in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA class of 2023. In 2017, she graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Science in ecology & evolutionary biology. She enjoys trying new restaurants with friends, exercising, photography, & reading in her free time. In the future, Genevieve would like to pursue a medical career that incorporates a planetary health perspective.
So, what is planetary health? It refers to a burgeoning field focused on understanding the health impacts of human-caused disruptions of Earth’s natural systems, including climate change and environmental pollution. This also encompasses the immediate and downstream health threats from such disruptions, which have impacts on communities at the local level — Philadelphia is no exception.
Despite this, most medical students will obtain little formal leadership training. We seek to improve our leadership abilities as burgeoning physicians. We developed this podcast to challenge ourselves to explore ideas in leadership development and how they apply to medical training.
I sit in the classroom, / staring blankly at the wall. / The professor has gone off once again, / regaling a story of some elderly patient’s fall.
While it is easy to feel stuck and unhappy in this current life-box, I recognize that we must take a few deep breaths and understand that this too shall pass. And that this did pass for all the physicians before us and will pass for all the physicians after us. And we will all get past this together.
One inch more than the measure of me, and one inch less than that of my father. It’s been a while since I lined up, back to back. But if I did, the space between us would only read two inches. Maybe less now that he is older. Nearly sixty. Closer to the next decade than the last.
When I began thinking of establishing an elective, I wished there had been a roadmap to follow to understand where to start and how to invest my time. Hopefully, by detailing my own process, which I’ve broken down into three phases, other students may feel that they too can take ownership of their education by developing something rooted in their passions for others to enjoy and learn from.
A loud cry as we enter the world. / A silent cry as we depart.
We’re overloaded with so much advice, so many ideas on how to be a better doctor, / how do we decide what to follow and what to ignore?
After this conversation, I am left thinking about ways in which medical schools can create an environment that is more welcoming and safer for students of color. An important part of learning is feeling comfortable enough to make mistakes in order to better identify opportunities for learning and growth.
Medicine is a discipline that claims to be based on empirical and scientific truth about human nature. Instead, its knowledge and practice are often steeped in biases like racism. For example, medicine was used in the nineteenth century to justify slavery due to the “biologically inherent superiority” of White races.
As a White male, there are certain things that I will never understand. I was raised in an upper-middle-class family in a safe neighborhood — one with adequate resources, education and funding. I have never had to live in fear in my community, worry about my safety on my street, or been threatened or condemned because of how I look. My reality is inexplicably shaped by the privilege and opportunities that I have been given. I realize that to me, racism appears nonexistent because I have not seen it.
I knew I moved through these spaces easily for many reasons, but being White is a big one that needs to be said out loud. And when you look and feel more comfortable in a space, it is easier to perform “well,” or to sound confident. This is directly related to what academic medicine characterizes as “objective” evaluations of students, and there is data to support this.
Writer-in-Training
Boston University School of Medicine
Nat is a fourth-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine in Boston Massachusetts, class of 2021. In 2017 they graduated from Hendrix College with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. They will be applying into psychiatry this year and are currently interested in becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Besides writing, in their free time they enjoy skateboarding, traveling, and trail running.
