Columnist Emeritus
Dubai Medical College
Tania Tabassum is student in the Class of 2015 at Dubai Medical College, UAE. She started medical school right after graduating high school. She loves finding lost books, music, cooking, Tumblr and watches an unhealthy amount of TV shows. She believes that life is all about balance and excess of anything really isn’t good.
The Making of a Medic
"The Making of a Medic" explores that which transforms the head of a high school graduate to that of a medic, shedding some light on what the life of a medic is really like, away from the myths and speculations. This column focuses on the reflections of personal experiences rather than the scholastics of medical school.
Coming from a family consisting almost exclusively of engineers, the world of medics had always been somewhat a mystery to me. All the family friends who my parents hung out with were engineers. None of my friends in school had parents who were doctors. The only doctors I met were the ones I saw for the little cold or flu that didn’t happen very often. The only idea I had about doctors came from what I …
After a late night out the Friday before Halloween, a long run in the morning and the scent of pad thai on Newbury Street in the afternoon, I came home craving brown rice in peanut sauce. I stood in the doorway and thought about the biology of food cravings, but quickly snapped out of it to scrounge my cupboards for ingredients. I aspire to cook without (printed) recipes like my mom does, so here was …
Over the past year, I’ve had a great experience getting involved with Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP), a national and on-campus advocacy group. The organization’s long-term goal is to reform health care financing in favor of a single, public insurance offering for all Americans (the “single-payer” movement). Its short-term goal is to increase grassroots support among physicians and health professional students in conjunction with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). One thing …
Well ladies and gents, it is that time of year again. The temperatures are getting cooler, the leaves are falling off the trees, and for thousands of fourth-year medical students, myself included, it is residency application and interview season. Fourth year year is a special time for all medical students. It means we are but mere months from achieving those oh-so-special added letters at the end of our names. It means no longer introducing yourself …
When I was a first-year medical student, the upperclassmen said that medical school would get better and better. I didn’t feel like that by the end of first year—or during second year. Third year started and it finally picked up. Now, as a fourth-year medical student, I can definitively say that medical school really does get better and better—you just have to be patient (but not a patient). Not everything in medical school is as …
Are you the kind of person who, like me, dances around the pasta pot waiting for water the boil, munching on uncooked noodles? Sometimes I pretend that I am going to memorize flashcards during this waiting period, but instead I end up tiptoeing over to the pot every few minutes “just to check on it.” Well, tonight I learned that by being extra lazy, it is possible to make a delicious fresh tomato sauce during …
Should we live a life with meaning? Yes, of course. What a silly question, you may think. But, what is a meaningful life? Is it feeling happy and being successful? Is it feeling good every day? Is it doing good things for others? Perhaps the better question is: do we make room for a meaningful life? We can live life every day in a meaningful way, doing our responsibilities and carrying out our promises. But, I wonder …
When I first wrote the acronym “B.A.M.,” I worked for a financial company and its meaning was very different then. Now that I’m in medical school, “B.A.M.” still stands for “believe, achieve and motivate,” but the meaning behind each letter has changed based on my new reality. Believe! I decided that, based on current and future med school demands, I needed to take control of the only thing that’s truly mine to control: my attitude. I believe …
Walking down the hospital halls after neurology, every twitch, twist of the neck or odd posture appears a nail to my hammer. Neuro lectures are captivating yet depressing, largely because right now, we can treat the symptoms but not the underlying cause of several diseases. However, everything we can treat is breathtaking, and soon we will develop cures for more diseases—hopefully. In the land of food, it seems that fall in upstate New York is …
While the aphorism “what goes around comes around” is by no means original to my mother, she most certainly repurposed it.* Along with her emphasis on the importance of education, this is a phrase that I remember being one of her earliest and most frequent messages to me and my siblings. When I think of how this phrase is generally used in pop culture, it’s a thinly veiled reminder that, sooner or later, the universe …
I quickly became acquainted with the practice of orthopedics during my childhood, as various boyish and overly rambunctious pursuits left me with over a dozen broken bones. Each break was relatively innocuous, at most fixed with some pinning; however, I became instantly aware of the gravity of orthopedic injury when my father broke his back on New Year’s Eve 2002. I was 14, and he was driving me to a friend’s house when we were …
It’s hard to say what motivates my fellow MD/PhD trainees to pursue the physician-scientist career track. In some ways, we’re a masochistic group, voluntarily choosing to spend seven to 10 years in the prime of our lives completing two doctoral degrees instead of one, then spending another four to eight years or more in residency, research residency, postdoctoral and possibly fellowship training before seeking a “real” job. Even for those of us who started our …
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.
