Contributing Writer
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
MS III at University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. From Ray, North Dakota.
In a recent article entitled “In Defense of Step 2 Clinical Skills,” Dr. Ken Simons, senior associate dean for graduate medical education and accreditation at the Medical College of Wisconsin, argues the current student-led campaign to end the USMLE Step 2 CS examination is misguided and potentially dangerous.
Many of us have this romanticized version of the ED in our heads from some TV drama. We imagine a world where beautiful physicians are sprinting next to flying gurneys, pounding chests and snarling, “Get me epi, STAT!” We imagine a war zone rife with Shakespearean tragedy, with heart-breaking moments that leave grizzled doctors weeping.
You see, when starting your anesthesiology clerkship it feels as if you are learning a completely new skillset and knowledge base. Of course you are drawing on common principles in physiology, pharmacology, and anatomy. But how they play out, and how you apply those concepts, are fresh. Here are some tips to maximize your learning, assist your resident and really start to appreciate the field.
Ten male students crowded around a clean-shaven instructor who asked a series of questions. The students had meticulously prepared and would maintain close proximity to well-rehearsed answers. Hopefully the questions are simple, they thought. One by one, they answered, at times stumbling through their responses. This was expected. The students were learning and the incorrect answers allowed room for humility. Such a scene could easily describe an American teaching hospital, or, a Republican presidential debate.
In this column, I hope to explore various qualities of a physician that we learn through medical school experiences — whether it be through class, shadowing, research, or even interacting with peers — but also to introduce a patient’s perspective in each case. Midway through my junior year of college, I was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease, a rare endocrine disorder that affected every aspect of my life. Throughout the next year and a half, I lived as a patient of my disease, while simultaneously trying to hold onto my plans and aspirations of becoming a physician.
On your mat, you struggle to lie on a bent leg, intensifying your stretch as your hip pleads for you to give up. Many yoga instructors describe hip-openers as a “dynamic” pose because the body is in a constant flux between comfort and discomfort. But there is a moment when your internal struggle abruptly ends.
When I started medical school, I was most excited to start learning again. Having spent the last couple years as a teacher in a classroom, I sorely missed the experience of being the student. Reflecting on my college days, I missed the intellectual conversations generated in our seminars, hours poring over literature under dimly lit alcoves of Sanborn Library, even the far-too-frequent all-nighters spent hashing through complex biochemical pathways with my study group.
The epidemics of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia roll through the US and across much of the world, eerily reminiscent to the sweeping cholera outbreaks of Snow’s era. Even in the majority of low- and middle-income countries, these chronic illnesses have already displaced infectious diseases to become the leading causes of death and disability. Yet, the majority of these are potentially preventable.
I walk down Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota this evening, and it is packed with people. People grieving, people chatting, people holding one another, people holding banners and people giving speeches. July 7, 2016: a black man named Philandro Castile had been killed barely twenty-four hours ago by a police officer.
During my first year of medical school, I had the privilege of speaking at several high schools and colleges. The purpose of these interactions was to shed light on what I did to matriculate into medical school, my experiences as a medical student, and to answer any questions. No matter where I went though, one question always followed: “What is the hardest part of medical school?”
About eight months into my first year of medical school, an incoming student asked me how to prepare for the upcoming journey. I could relate to the panicked, excited feeling of the duty to prepare for medical school after an intense visit day. Yet, instead of defaulting to my ingrained answer of, “Nothing can prepare you for medical school,” which I believe was not in the student’s interest to hear, I carefully considered her question and answered, “It’s very important to be a good listener.”
A ubiquitous hierarchy pervades all levels of medicine. Medical students are anchored firmly at the bottom of medicine’s social ladder, rendering them functionally powerless. Although students theoretically have a “voice”, their precarious position low down makes them apprehensive to use it. Students’ grades, evaluations and recommendations, etc.– which have real, tangible impacts, not only on students’ academics, but also their future careers and lives — are contingent on appeasing those higher up on the so-called social ladder.
Contributing Writer
Yale University
School of Medicine
Parsa attended Cornell University as an undergraduate, where he majored in Human Biology. He had a particular interest in nutrition, healthcare policy, near eastern studies, and human development while in Ithaca. He completed medical school as part of Drexel University College of Medicine's Class of 2017. He is currently an Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Resident at Yale University.
