Writer-in-Training
Faculty of Medicine of Memorial University of Newfoundland
Kelly Aminian is a first year medical student at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She holds a BSc in neuroscience from Carleton University and an MSc in clinical neuroscience from King’s College London. Her hobbies include playing harp and travelling.
“One of the major problems of rural health is the chronic shortage of health care practitioners in rural, remote and northern areas,” said Dr. Raymond Pong, founder of the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research in Canada.
After introducing myself as a first-year medical student working the attending physician, I went through the medical history with the patient in order to ascertain his chief complaint and history of present illness.
On November 22, several hundred premedical and medical students gathered at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine for the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Training Grounds. It was the second Training Grounds sponsored by AMSA this fall, with the topic of “Leading the Change in the Culture of Medicine.” Although a popular topic being addressed throughout all of medical education, Dr. Jeff Koetje, AMSA’s Education and Research Director, clarified that AMSA Training Grounds is unique. “These conferences provide a safe place for students to learn about these topics away from their home institution,” Dr. Koetje said. “Students can come here and discover that they are not alone.”
“Which one of you idiots gave my patient a homosexual dose of diuretic?” Unbelievably, this is what the senior surgeon “growled” at Dr. Pauline Chen and her cohort during surgery training, according to her article in The New York Times entitled “Does Medicine Discourage Gay Doctors?”
This episode is the first in a series on entrepreneurship in medicine. Our guest Shiv Gaglani is a student at both the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Harvard Business School. His ventures include the medical education company Osmosis and site Quantified Care. He’s also editor at Medgadget, a blog about medical technology. We sat down with him and picked his brain about what it’s like to fill gaps in medical education, be a medical student and entrepreneur, and more.
Once upon a time, in a rural hospital far, far away, a med student began her clerkship. At the University of British Columbia, the Integrated Community Clerkship (ICC) provides an opportunity to spend the first clinical year of medical school in a hospital in rural British Columbia rather than a large academic center. The intent is to provide hands-on education and to encourage physicians to one day return to serve a rural community. Applying to the ICC was …
As the health care landscape evolves in the coming years, how will academic medicine adapt? And what do these tectonic shifts in health policy mean for medical students? This week on History & Physical, we’re joined by Dr. Atul Grover, the Chief Public Policy Officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Dr. Grover leads the public policy, strategy and outreach efforts that advance the work of the academic medicine community. He talks about the pact made between the government and academic medical centers to support medical graduate training, why so much innovation can come from medical colleges, and what students can do to advocate for their future.
In his rousing and intermittently aggressive plenary address to the thousands congregated last week at the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) Excellence in Education conference in Milan, Richard Horton bemoaned the stagnation of modern medical education, implicating everything from the ivory-tower universities of old to the world health care economy for the plummeting decline of medical education. “Two percent of total expenditures in medicine are invested on education,” the editor-in-chief of The Lancet …
As medicine moves into the 21st century, how will medical education adapt? Also, what is digital literacy, and what does it mean for the physician of tomorrow? Today, we have Dr. Bryan Vartabedian from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. When he’s not doing scopes as a pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. Vartabedian blogs about the intersection of medicine and technology at 33Charts and can be found on Twitter at @Doctor_V.
MAD: mnemonics are dangerous. Like many of the concepts taught today in medical school, this opening phrase is an oversimplification of a complicated idea.
Belize for the summer, Africa for spring break, the Philippines during winter break, and the list of medical mission opportunities goes on and on at most medical schools. Now, don’t get me wrong; I absolutely love mission trips and all of the great work that certain groups like the Christian Medical and Dental Associations and other mission-oriented organizations do for the cause. However, I feel that one vital area that definitely qualifies as a “medical mission” …
“You know, the globus pallidus.” My coaxing words ripened in the air between us. Josh admitted it sounded familiar, but couldn’t quite remember the time or the place. This concerned me, because my friend was a highly accomplished emergency physician, yet he wrinkled his nose at “globus pallidus” like it was a piece of decomposing fruit. “It’s in the brain,” I said helpfully. He smiled, “That’s probably why it sounds familiar.” A few hours before, …
Medical Student Editor
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Daniel graduated from Tufts University in 2004. His subsequent pursuits included everything from cell cycle research to manufacturing shampoo. Medically, his interests lie in emergency and wilderness medicine, infectious disease, and health care sustainability. Daniel is medical student at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Class of 2017.
