Tag: medical student lifestyle

Haritha Sishtla Haritha Sishtla (6 Posts)

Columnist Emeritus

Albany Medical College

Hey guys, I'm Haritha Sishtla, a Class of 2015 medical student at Albany Medical College. I went to undergrad not too far away at Union College and majored in biology and economics. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk and share my experiences, and that I spend a lot of time taking pictures and Instagramming and/or PicStitching them. I also spend a lot of time on Pinterest, which may cut into my study time...

eom. [existing outside medical school]

As medical students, we often find ourselves attending countless hours of lecture, studying late at night in the library, and eating junk from the hospital cafeteria. We forget that there is a life outside of the bubble that is medical school! Read our column to take a break from the work and exist outside of medical school.




Gobi Manchurian: A Healthy Version of the Classic Indo-Chinese Dish

Published by Haritha Sishtla

Medical school can be quite challenging and often times stressful. Being second-year medical students ourselves, we face the same trials and tribulations that other students face all over the country. Between the countless hours of lecture that you are still catching up on from the past week and the many textbooks that you are thumbing through just to make sense of your lecturer, we find ourselves not knowing how to exist outside of medical school. …

Med School Got You Down?

Published by Shamini Parameswaran

It’s that time of the year again. For second-years, USMLE Step 1 is around the corner. For third-years, it’s Step 2. For fourth-years, their future careers are just months away. At times, the pressure of medical school looms and the daily challenges that students face become disheartening. That’s why I like to be reminded of short stories of people who did not necessarily go through medical school, but were faced with many hardships. Some were …

Yoga and Medicine: What Med Students Should Know About this Ancient Health Practice

Published by Jennie Barnes

Why should future physicians know about yoga? Yoga is an ancient health science based on the experimental and experiential. The physical postures and meditative practices of yoga developed through thousands of years of intent study of the body’s responses to particular postures and meditations. Many patients have already caught on to yoga as a form of mental and physical self-care and preventive health. If we adequately understand yoga, we can seize an opportunity to encourage the …

Running Out of Gas, Burning Out, and Extinguishing Oneself

Published by Jennifer Evan

Today I was told that, because of the profession I have chosen, I am at a high risk for suicide. And so commences the medical ethics portion of medical school. While this was not the line with which the lecture began — which I’m sure would have evoked terror in most of the stern-faced-but-wide-eyed first-years that faced the front of the room — it was stated directly and at point-blank, roughly halfway through the introductory …

The Ultimate Medical School Study Break: Skydiving

Published by Samantha Margulies

Editor’s note: This article was originally published here by contributing writer Samantha Margulies. “Did I tell everybody I love them?” Daniel Gaballa worried as he drove over two hours away from his medical school. He turned into a long driveway leading to a few white buildings. With farmland on both sides, Gaballa and his friends could see the horizon. The Mayan predictions did not concern him at the moment. His world — not the whole world — could end today. …

Stress Management in Medicine

Published by Paul Thomas

Editor’s note: This article was originally published here by contributing writer Paul Thomas. Stress in medicine is a topic that often comes up in the medical literature, in the popular press and in our own interpersonal experiences. But what does stress management look like for a young physician in training? And what are large health systems doing to promote stress management among their employees? This week, I had the good fortune of attending a one-hour session on …

Eat, Study, Love: A Guide to Surviving the Boards

Published by Valentina Bonev

Studying for the boards is like preparing for a marathon shelf. Your stamina, knowledge, guessing skills and sanity will all be tested, although these are not formal topics listed on the syllabus. At first, you’re gung-ho and ready to crack open your freshly bought books. Then, you slow down as you stare out the window wanting to be outside enjoying life. Lastly, you stare at your calendar wishing your test date was already here so …

And BINGO Was His Name-O

Published by Dragos Rezeanu

Author’s Note: Special thanks to the McQueen twins for letting me mention them … twice. Still can’t tell you guys apart to save my life. There are a lot of words you could use to describe the average med student: tired, burnt-out, hard-working, haggard, (and more often than not) seated. But one word that rarely comes to mind is bored. That’s because we associate boredom with having nothing to do, and believe you me, we …

Barriers to Mindfulness in Med School

Published by Nicole Perkes

The life of a medical student is a rapid succession of lectures, small group sessions, exams, clinical experiences, workshops, meetings, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. As such, there has never been a more perfect time to stop and smell the roses. Seriously. As described in the blossoming literature, mindfulness techniques quite literally offer the opportunity to stop, breath, and take in the present moment -– roses, exams and all. Mindfulness is the nonjudgmental observation and …

Reading Fiction in Medical School? Surely You Jest.

Published by Patrick McCabe

When he visited UAB last year, Abraham Verghese opened his talk with the statement that if one no longer read fiction, the brain would die. His strong words offered reassurance that at least some medical professionals value literature. Further, the statement suggested that he makes time for it and would allot time for it for others. Indeed, at Stanford, he spends his afternoons brainstorming within a thinking room instead of a laboratory. Verghese’s declaration also …

Defining Mindfulness in Med School

Published by Nicole Perkes

Listen carefully and you may hear the whispers that mindfulness is becoming yet another buzzword in medicine, following in the steps of “cultural competency,” “narrative medicine,” and the like. It is trendy among its niche and it is being compelled into the curriculum of med schools across Canada and the United States in the hopes of creating a generation of physicians who haven’t burnt out by their ten-year reunions. Yeah, I’ve heard of mindfulness, but what is it, really? …

Does My ASIS Look Big in This White Coat?

Published by Kevin Fairbairn

Over the course of our Nutrition, Growth & Development block, I thought it might be a good idea to start looking into what I’ve been putting into my body on a daily basis during medical school. As a result, I settled on using the My Fitness Pal app as a diet tracker (this is by no means a product endorsement — I have not received funding nor do I have any conflicts of interests, aside from the …

Kevin Fairbairn Kevin Fairbairn (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer Emeritus

University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine

Glitter is underused in all facets of life.