Tag: medical humanities

Joanne Ha (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Boston University School of Medicine

Joanne Ha is a first year medical student at the Boston University School of Medicine in Boston, MA. In 2021, she graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in Medical Science. She enjoys listening to music, reading, and cooking in her free time. After medical school, she is interested in pursuing a career in psychiatry.




How Your Neurons Respond to Art

Published by Joanne Ha

It was 5 p.m. on a Thursday and I had just finished my first preceptorship session with my fourth-year medical student preceptor. That afternoon was one of many firsts, as it was also the first time I conducted a patient interview. My first-ever patient was a middle-aged woman in the emergency room talking to me through Zoom. I remember introducing myself nervously, stuttering on the few syllables that make up my name, and then asking what brought her to the hospital.

Snakes and Symbols: How Medicine Misrepresents Itself

Published by M.T. Bennett

A picture is worth 1,000 words, and the world today is full of symbols. Emojis share paragraphs of information. Logos inform us about what a company represents or does. Shapes and colors share messages of safety or caution on the road. Symbols are everywhere and understanding them brings deeper understanding to the world around us. Medicine is a field of precision, and that is precisely why it is so strange that such confusion exists as to which symbol should represent it.

Why Reading (Still) Matters in Medicine, by John Kim, DO

Published by John Kim, DO

The road to medical school mostly requires good grades in the hard sciences, high entrance exam scores, volunteering, and other quality extracurricular experiences. Once in medical school, the curriculum is a rollercoaster ride of learning anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment. At first glance, the journey seems to leave little room for anything else. Along the way, we also often hear about cultivating behavioral decorum and social intelligence as soon as our third year clinical rotations begin, or possibly even sooner.

Is Medical Humanism a Humanism?

Published by Steven Lange

It is 1 p.m. on a Wednesday, and 250 medical students are filing into the lecture hall to listen to a lecture on health care and society. The chatter is not one of excitement, but of disconcertment. Many students complain that their time would be better spent studying hematology. These are not uncaring students who disavow the needs of the disabled, but a generation that demonstrates a palpable reaction to the way that medicine is taught. We may be quick to fault them for their alarming aversion to a discussion on ethics, but we must also consider: is ethics meant to be force-fed?

A Matter of Life and Death: Review of “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande

Published by Brent Schnipke

Few doctors in the modern era have established themselves so securely as both doctor and writer as to be easily recognized in both circles; this is perhaps because of the difficult and time-demanding nature of both careers. One notable exception is Dr. Atul Gawande, a renowned general surgeon in Boston, MA, who also happens to be a widely published and well-known author of several books. In his most recent book, “Being Mortal,” it is clear that he has grown, not only as a writer, but as a doctor and a human being as well – which, after all, is what this book is all about.

God’s Hotel: Reviewing the Story of How Medicine Should Be

Published by Brent Schnipke

It is no great mystery that burnout is prevalent in the field of medicine, and it almost seems as if studies and articles highlighting this sad and disturbing truth are published daily. The reality is that doctors and doctors-in-training often struggle with their profession of choice, citing disillusionment, depression, long hours, exhaustion and lack of empathy as either symptoms or causes of feeling burnt out.

Book Review: I Am Your Doctor, and This Is My Humble Opinion

Published by Nita Chen, MD

History and the greater emergence of medical presence in popular media have placed physicians on a pedestal where they command significant power and respect. As healers and scholars who are privy to the secrets of the human body, physicians are often expected to shoulder great responsibilities for their fellow human being while still maintaining their own mental well-being.

Nita Chen, MD Nita Chen, MD (39 Posts)

Medical Student Editor and in-Training Staff Member Emeritus

University of Florida Fixel Movement and Neurorestoration Institute

Nita Chen is a current movement disorders fellow at University of Florida Movement and Neurorestoration program. She is Class of 2017 medical student at Albany Medical College. To become cultural, she spent her early educational years in Taiwan and thoroughly enjoyed wonderful Taiwanese food and milk tea, thus ruining her appetite for the rest of her life in the United States. Aside from her neuroscience and cognitive science majors during her undergraduate career, she holed herself up in her room writing silly fictional stories, doodling, and playing the piano. Or she could be found spazzing out like a gigantic science nerd in various laboratories. Now she just holes up in her room to study most of the time.