Contributing Writer
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Daniel Ricketti is a Class of 2018 medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. He is passionate about evidence based medicine and helping the impoverished gain access to better medical care. When he is not doing anything medical school related he can be found playing with his dog and watching sports.
It is illegal to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it places the individuals surrounding you at risk of harm. Why then can someone demand that people not vaccinate their children when this puts not only their children, but others at risk as well?
You claim that my choice breaks your heart, / as if mine isn’t shattered and cracked. / You think I don’t know how beautiful he’d be, /or wonder how he’d walk, talk and act.
Many medical students made the choice to pursue their career path in their college years or even in high school, and nearly all doctors have chosen their profession by the end of their third decade. These are exhilarating years for young people. These are years where life can seem rich with freedom, opportunity, and, notably, with length. Dedicating a decade to medical training can seem like a choice that, though not easy, represents a worthy investment of one’s youth.
A few years ago when I was working at a charter school in upstate New York, one of my students was caught “prostituting herself” to men she was messaging online. When asked, she said she was doing so for a 30-year-old man she claimed was her boyfriend. Word about this traveled quickly at school. Students talked about her behind her back and called her a “hoe.”
Sometimes it is difficult to reconcile value systems that pull a person in opposite directions. Specifically in medicine, where the laws and nature of the work are so sensitive, yet also so important, it is within normal daily function to default to the ethics and American system of law. However, for Orthodox Jews, it is not that simple. Certain laws, such as the laws pertaining to the Sabbath, can make practicing medicine quite tricky.
“What can you do here that we can’t do at home?” This question angered my resident. How dare a patient admitted to the hospital ask for justification of their plan? The progress note had already been written and orders entered; assent to the plan was assumed and having to walk the patient through the options would extend rounds considerably. What an inconvenience.
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.
Author’s note: This article was originally published on TexasMedicine. In Texas, as in all other states, a person who is unable to make his or her own medical decisions has the right to an advance directive (AD) for restricting medical treatment; that is, unless that person is pregnant. If a woman is pregnant in Texas, she loses her right to an AD; that is true regardless of the stage of her pregnancy and without regard for …
My entire life’s work has culminated in medical school. Every volunteer organization, every organic molecule I drew, every sacrifice I made in the name of studying has led to being here in Washington, D.C. Why? To join the ranks of the people I held with the highest esteem: doctors. Doctors were the embodiment of justice, beneficence and non-maleficence in my mind: flawless humans. Something I overlooked in that belief was that doctors are, in fact, …
“My doctor told me I needed to eat healthier and exercise. But to be honest, his stomach was literally dragging on the floor. If he can’t follow his own advice, why do I need to?” I was taking the bus home from my hospital shift one afternoon, silently eavesdropping on two middle-aged women sitting in front of me. They had just finished a physical exam with their primary care doctor: a mid-forties man with an …
A leading expert on language and the mind, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker suggests in his book “The Stuff of Thought” that “conceptual metaphors point to an obvious way in which people could learn to reason about new, abstract concepts,” as well as provide the imagery and substrate to help store and share knowledge. The metaphorization of illness allows us to describe it in easily-digestible forms which have relevance and relation to our everyday speech. The …
Standing at the foot of her hospital bed, it was clear to me — as it was to the attending physician — that my grandmother was suffering from a disease: an obvious structural disorder identified by scientific medicine as negatively impacting her health. Hilar mass, cavitation, hypercalcemia. Keratin pearls, intercellular bridges. Hemoptysis, dyspnea, edema. It was also apparent to this eight year-old, however, that she was burdened by an illness, or an impaired sense of well-being. …
Medical Student Editor and in-Training Staff Member
Albany Medical College
Steven attends Albany Medical College as a student of the Class of 2017. Raised in Queens, New York, he earned a BA in English with a minor in Biology from Binghamton University in May 2013. Some of his interests include poetry, martial arts, traveling, and continental philosophy. He is currently aspiring to become a radiologist.
