Contributing Writer Emeritus
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Daniel Lefler is a member of the Class of 2016 at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, NJ. He studied neuroscience at The College of William & Mary. His passion is the medical sciences, but he also enjoys the performing arts.
It took one day of medical school to kick me off the high horse I rode through the months leading up to it. “Repeat after me,” said one of our administrators as he quieted down the eager students. “I am a first-year, and I know nothing. Remember that.” It was completely true. (A year later, it probably still is.) To all of my family members who keep asking me what that rash is: I don’t …
Editor’s note: This article was originally published here by contributing writer Samantha Margulies. We take exams. We take patient histories. We may or may not go to class. We study… a lot. Before all of this, however, we were newly inducted first-year medical students, and Dr. Slaby introduced our class to our very first patients. They would become our best study buddies. While he spoke to us and explained how class would work, I thought about their families—you. …
On Friday, January 25, 2013, my classmates and I prepared for a ceremony of remembrance, a ceremony which would represent our sentiments of honor and solemn appreciation of the lives and selfless acts of donation to the medical field of the men and women who were our anatomical donors. Over a nine-week course, we spent countless hours in the anatomy lab studying the human body from the inside out. Among our tools in mastering the …
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. …
It was Wednesday, August 4, 2010, a day I will never forget. I woke up that morning in anticipation of meeting a new friend who I had never met before. Up until this point, this friend was only in my dreams; I only had imagined how he would look, how old he would be, or where he would be from–let alone a multitude of other questions. Today was the day when I would meet this mystery …
Editor’s note: This article was originally published here by contributing writer Samantha Margulies. I have seen dead bodies before. Two of my grandparents had open caskets. I have previously visited two cadaver labs–once during a medical school tour and once visiting a friend at medical school. Similar to seeing my grandparents, I feel a pull into the lab to see the cadaver I will soon dissect. The entire class of 2016 walks into the gross anatomy lab after …
Those of you who know me–and in about five words, the rest of you–know that I have a slight obsession with the comic Calvin and Hobbes. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been reading the strip religiously. If I could make a personalized version of those “Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned From…” posters, it would end with–you guessed it–Calvin and Hobbes. For the purposes of this column (and your sanity), …
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 …
If you have some time today (I know, I’m hilarious), take a minute to look up a YouTube video of someone running a 400-meter dash, and specifically watch their last 100 meters. This is the part of the 400-meter where you get what is affectionately referred to as “buttlock” in the track and field world. For that last 100 meters, even Olympic athletes are trying their damnedest to keep form, relax, and stride it out, …
Ladies and gentlemen, the mood this week is pensive, in a count your blessings sort of way. Fortunately, given that it’s Thanksgiving week and all, I’m thinking my timing is appropriate. Enjoy. Every stage in life, it seems, has its purpose. And by all accounts the purpose of this stage seems to be worrying about all the rest. I don’t mean med school specifically (not that this particular chapter is exactly “worry-free”), I just mean …
The conversations among my fellow MS1s have evolved dramatically over the last three months. Mid-August, we were energetic and extremely excited to start this next chapter of our lives. For some, putting on the white coat was an expectation since childhood. For others, like myself, this was an unexpected, yet exciting, career change. We all walked into orientation ready to take on the world! Why wouldn’t we be thrilled? We beat thousands of qualified applicants …
Considering how much of an effect this presidential election has on the future of medicine, I’d be surprised if every med student isn’t taking the night off, or at the very least keeping a tab open, to watch the states as they as they pick the color they’ll be wearing for the next four years. Unfortunately, that also means that none of you jerks are gonna read this column. For the rest of the night …
Columnist, in-Training Staff Member, and Editor Emeritus: Former Medical Student Editor (2012-2013)
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Writer, editor, motorcycle enthusiast and medical student, Dragos almost achieved the impossible early in life by nearly failing fifth grade. Born in Romania, raised in Colorado and somehow now in Alabama, Dragos graduated magna cum laude from Auburn University in 2011 with a degree in biomedical sciences, making his way shortly thereafter to Birmingham and the UAB School of Medicine. Over the next several years he hopes to make a few friends, learn a few things, write a few articles, and just maybe find himself as a physician-journalist in a fulfilling surgical career somewhere down the line.
