Contributing Writer
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
Madhavi is a Class of 2017 medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford. Before medical school, she studied sociology and biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and spent a year abroad volunteering and traveling in India. Her interests include social justice and public health, along with health journalism. When she's not studying, you can find her in the kitchen experimenting with recipes to make them healthier or out in the community meeting new people.
“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. …
You’re working at a pediatric primary care clinic and enter the room of a five-year-old boy and his mother for a routine physical. You ask about the child’s general health the past year, his diet, exercise, among other things. Then you start to ask questions relating to the patient’s safety, such as his use of seat belts and helmets, and you start to ask about guns in the home. But then, alarms start to go off …
By way of 1992 policy, men who have had sex with men (MSM) any time since 1977 are ineligible for blood donation. We believe the current policy is possibly justified, but certainly inconsistent with other CDC donation policies, and the the American Medical Association and the American Association of Blood Banks appear to agree. Here we will focus primarily on the latter issue, as it pertains to everyone’s health more so than only the degrading feeling that non-infected gay men likely endure when attempting to give lifesaving resources back to their community.
Mr. Lacey was irate, to say the least, as he rattled off a list of his symptoms. Constant pain. Nausea. Dizziness. Numbness. Weakness. Fatigue bordering on exhaustion. He said he had been spending most of the day in bed and had become dependent on his wife and children for basic daily tasks. “I’m serious, Doc. I’ve just about had enough of this. I’ve been looking into Hemlock Societies.” The interview screeched to a halt, and …
She had not been home in at least three days. She sat motionless, shoulders slumped, arms draped limply over her lap. I couldn’t tell if she had nodded off. The wrinkles of her clothes seemed to blend into the lines of her face, stuck in a soft, yet permanent frown. The red of her blouse appeared faint against her pallid skin, as if exhaustion had sapped everything it could from her being, and had moved …
Any threat to the celebrated individualism of American citizens is usually met with fierce debate — be the enemy mandatory health coverage or a ban on 64-ounce sugary soft drinks. What happens, then, when the results of these individual choices conflicts with the limitations of reality? Obesity was categorized as a disease by the American Medical Association only one year ago but in many ways it defies such neat classification. In the AMA’s own statement …
Ms. Romero is an otherwise healthy medical student who was transferred to the MICU with acute liver failure; isoniazid toxicity. Crystal had a positive PPD screening, negative chest x-ray and started therapy for potential LTBI. After seven weeks the patient felt fatigued, anorexic, jaundiced, RUQ abdominal pain, and was found to have elevated LFT’s & INR. She was originally admitted to INOVA for observation, but was transferred to Medstar Georgetown University Hospital MICU and worked …
Medical training prides itself on being an art, never simply a black-and-white field where answers to increasingly complex health questions are merely algorithmically derived. It follows then that the only way for medical knowledge to transcend this rigid, computational process is through the accumulation of clinical experience, which over enough time should inform our intuition to the point where we become masters of navigating a sea of grays. This archetype is classically understood to be …
I’m writing in response to Sam Armstrong’s anti-choice piece “Who Counts, Who Doesn’t: Human Value, Reproductive Freedom and the Abortion-on-Demand Debate” that was recently published online at in-Training. While a comprehensive review of student doctor Armstrong’s arguments is warranted, I will only attack those I found particularly troublesome. I’ll also add salient points he did not discuss, while maintaining an eye on the neo-proverbial “TL;DR” clock. Mr. Armstrong (who I’ll now refer to as “Sam,” as he is …
Introduction What makes us human? This question may strike you as simplistic, after all, our membership in the species Homo sapiens is the obvious answer, or you may interpret the question more abstractly to mean: What is the essence of being human? It is the latter sense of this question that is of particular importance to us as physicians-in-training. Now, I am sure you are wondering what this seemingly esoteric question has to do with anything practical. …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Sam is a Class of 2015 DO student at NSUCOM. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 2007 with a BS in biological sciences.
