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Septic shock. Liver failure. Kidney cancer.
Tag: MS3
Contributing Writer
Emory University School of Medicine
Natalie is a medical student at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia class of 2026. In 2022, she graduated from Muhlenberg College as valedictorian with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and minor in Jewish studies. She enjoys reading fantasy novels and playing with her pet rabbits in her free time. After graduating medical school, Natalie would like to pursue a career in psychiatry.
Practicing Medicine
After spending nearly a lifetime as a Type A perfectionist who struggled with developing new skills, I had spent the last several years trying to adopt a policy of “practice makes progress.” I have learned to accept the fact that being bad at something is often the first step towards being good at it.
MD-to-be
With imposter syndrome raging,/ I sit quietly at my desk,/ reflect on goals for my future/ and what it means to do my best.
Faces of the Wards
I would be lying if I said I remember every single patient that I have seen in the past almost two years of clinical rotations. However, each of my core rotations has become defined by one or two patients that most stood out to me.
Sensing The Emergency Department
“Three, two, one … lift,” the circulating nurse directs as I raise the patient’s feet from the trauma table onto the recovery bed, gushing with the giddiness of getting to use my hands in a medical setting for the first time.
The Art of Mastering Oral Case Presentations: A Third Year Medical Student’s Perspective
The following infographic is the result of my goal to create a resource, backed by literature, from the perspective of a medical student to help other students become fluent in the “language” of oral case presentations at the start of any clerkship rotation.
Lost and Found in Medical Training
Many people told me that my third year of medical school would be both the most rewarding and the most difficult. That I would choose my future specialty and discover my specific path in medicine — a task which, as I began the year, seemed both exciting and daunting. Little did I know that during my third year of medical school, I would learn just as much about myself as I would about patient care and the practice of medicine.
First Day
After our first week on clinical rotations, my third-year medical student colleagues laughed about the silly and awkward things that made their first days hard. Someone was shunned for bumping into the sterile field during their first operation. Someone else couldn’t figure out the scrub machines and was stuck mismatching for the day.
New Therapist On The Block
She sat on her bed in a bright magenta shirt covered in glittery animals, with her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her green eyes were trained on the muted television broadcasting Disney cartoons, and her bed was strewn with coloring books and crayons. This scene looked quite different from the other overdoses we had been consulted on. Still, our attending calmly walked up to her bedside, introduced our bustling team and asked the universal question,
Extra Scrubs—Optional, but Highly Encouraged
During my OB/GYN rotation, one of my primary roles as a medical student was to observe and assist during labor and delivery. On one particularly memorable Friday afternoon, after we welcomed a healthy baby boy into our world, I delivered the placenta wholly intact on my own. However, while I felt satisfied with a job well done, something was dripping down my leg…
Ode to MS3
For current third-year students across the country, the pandemic hit at a notably unstable moment in our lives. Mere months after many of us began medical school in new localities amongst new communities, all was suddenly fragmented.
Medical (Student) Metamorphosis
Before starting medical school, buried in a list of to-do tasks, I was asked to submit my Meyers-Briggs personality inventory. I was no stranger to this string of four letters, as I had performed the assessment many times in my life. I didn’t need to take the test again to know what I would get: INFJ.
Contributing Writer
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Sara Wierbowski is a forth-year medical student at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. class of 2023. In 2019, she graduated from The University of Scranton with a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience and Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. She is currently a member of the Literature and Medicine Scholarly Track, which allows her to continue to enjoy the humanities while in medical school. After graduating medical school, Sara plans to pursue a psychiatry residency.