Tag: medical student lifestyle

Tony Sun Tony Sun (2 Posts)

Columnist

Weill Cornell Medical College

Tony Sun is an MD-PhD student at Cornell Medical College. He completed his BA in English literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Tony read Shakespeare unenthusiastically in high school, but he reread and rediscovered Shakespeare in college and has since remained committed to a lifelong appreciation of imaginative literature.

Shakespeare for Doctors

This column is about the benefits of reading Shakespeare and is written with medical students, doctors, and scientists in mind. Reading Shakespeare’s verse drama trains reading skills, in the broadest sense of the word “reading.” Reading well means doing active thinking, questioning, and imagining, which are the same skills involved in reading a complex patient, or an elusive scientific problem. Shakespeare offers excellent plays for practicing these skills outside the clinic or laboratory, and my goal is to give examples of how I read his verse drama — each installment will focus on one play.




Poetry for Medical Students

Published by Tony Sun

When my classmates ask me to recommend poems for reading, I am always thrilled to share my favorite poems. After sharing, I sometimes ask myself the following questions: What am I recommending exactly? How can reading poetry benefit my classmates? How has reading poetry helped me, if it even has? These are important questions to think about, particularly when thinking about how to prioritize reading poetry alongside other activities; this would not be unlike using triage to assign priority for treatments.

Escaping the Sphere

Published by T. N. Diem Vu, MD

Step 1 studying can be a lonely endeavor. This is true even if you have a study buddy — you may share a table at the local café, but you might as well be sitting in two different worlds. One of you reviews cardiac physiology while the other watches a renal pathology lecture. Your worlds may convene occasionally as one of you quizzes the other on neurocutaneous syndromes or shares an interesting tidbit from a question bank …

The Research-to-Medicine Culture Shock

Published by Emilia Calvaresi

Now that I have finished my PhD and moved on to the rest of my medical training, the last few months have been an interesting change of pace. Since I took first-year medical school classes piecemeal while spending the majority of my time working on my doctoral research, being a full-time medical student now is a new experience (and a culture shock in some ways) for me! I’ve had to reevaluate the utility of my …

How to Stay Sane in Medical School: Review of “The Mindful Medical Student”

Published by Brent Schnipke

As medical students, we are handed many books and are told to read them — and memorize them, usually. In addition to the technical, fact-filled and scientific books we are given, medical students would probably benefit from being handed a self-help book or two. It is interesting that medical students, a group intent on making our lives about caring for others, so often fail to care for ourselves. The difficulty with medical students is that …

Empathy, Refugees and Fad Diets

Published by Alison Trainor

Medical school does a great job of teaching students about anatomy, biochemistry, differential diagnoses, diseases, medications, lab tests and imaging studies. Although science is a critical and indispensable part of being a doctor, understanding patients as unique individuals can be crucial to providing the best care. Knowing a patient’s story and being able to empathize can improve patient outcomes and adherence. While it is more difficult to quantify the effect of empathy than the effect …

Better Mom, Better Doctor

Published by Mariya Cherneykina

Few joys in my life compare to that moment in November of 2011 when I opened that fateful letter granting me a spot in medical school. As I hopped for joy, I had no idea that I was celebrating with the person who would provide me with immeasurable joy for the rest of my life — the kind of joy that does not lend itself to metaphor, literary nuance or even the best descriptive talents. …

Work In the Time to Work Out

Published by Jimmy Yan

We all know it’s important to stay fit and healthy during medical school, especially as ward duties, call nights, electives and residency applications add more stress into our lives. These responsibilities whittle away at our energy and spare time, making it harder to maintain a regular workout regime in a busy schedule. Despite our best efforts, the priority to work out can slip as we struggle to find time. I mean, let’s face it: after …

Comfort Food for the Med Student: Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Pea Soup

Published by Haritha Sishtla

“Nothing is more needed than nourishment for the imagination.” This quote from an article in The Atlantic entitled “For the Young Doctor About to Burn Out” is one that is profoundly meaningful as we start the last year of medical school. While most of our mind is occupied with the thoughts of where we will match and spend the next chapter in residency training, we can’t help but also reflect on how far we’ve come, what our career means to …

Married Medical Student: Prioritizing Date Night

Published by Allison Lyle

As a tour guide on interview days for my school, the most frequent question I am asked is: “What’s it like to be married — or to pursue a relationship — while in medical school?” This question is understandable. More than a year ago, I was asking the same question to medical students I met during my interview days, apprehensive about how school would affect or change my relationship with my husband. It is a …

Book Review: “Reluctant Intern” by Bill Yancey, MD

Published by Nita Chen, MD

Dr. Bill Yancey, MD paints a creative yet candid narrative of young resident Addison Wolfe’s maturation as a physician in his book, “The Reluctant Intern.” Based on his own experiences as a physician, Dr. Yancey constructs a platform of fictional realism grounded in the brutal realities of the culture in medicine whilst coloring it with an appropriate dash of creativity. We accompany Dr. Wolfe through the vicissitudes of his entire residency, highlighted through Dr. Yancey’s elegant …

For You Bike Commuters: Six Things I Learned From Two Wheels

Published by Jimmy Yan

Let me start off by saying that I don’t think of myself as a hardcore cyclist: I don’t own multiple bikes, I am not on Strava, and I don’t own a single cycling kit or jersey. In fact, outside of my commute to the hospitals, errand runs and trips to friends’ places, I don’t really ride my bike. I started cycling to work during my clerkship year in medical school, partly as a way to …

Life after the Ph.D. (with the M.D. Still to Go)

Published by Emilia Calvaresi

As an MD/PhD student, I’ve always understood that the training process would be neither easy nor brief. After five years as a biochemistry graduate student, I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation and earned a PhD in July. In August, I’ll be a full-time medical student, with three more years of medical school to go. As I’ve wrapped up the graduate school era of my life, I’ve thought a fair deal about what I’ll miss, what I won’t …

Emilia Calvaresi (6 Posts)

Columnist

University of Illinois College of Medicine

Emilia Calvaresi grew up in Chicago, IL, and in 2009 completed a BS in biochemistry and cell biology and a BA in English from Rice University in Houston, TX. Then, deciding to delay the onset of entering the "real world" indefinitely, she chose to pursue the MD/PhD career track, matriculating to the UIUC Medical Scholars Program (MSP) in 2009. She is currently pursuing both an MD and a PhD in biochemistry.

MD/PhD: Becoming a Doctor-Doctor

This column explores the MD/PhD career track from a current trainee’s perspective, including the benefits and challenges of pursuing two doctoral degrees simultaneously, time management and life balance, and post-graduation training and career opportunities.