Editor Emeritus: Former Medical Student Editor (2014-2015)
Weill Cornell Medical College
Sanjay received a undergraduate degree from Amherst College, where he studied Neuroscience and Religion. He is currently a class of 2015 medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College.
In 1984, in the midst of fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a young girl agreed to pose for a photo. In her short life, she had survived the carpet bombings that claimed the lives of her parents, trekked through mountains to escape her war-torn home, and struggled to adjust to life amongst a sea of other refugees — but she had never been photographed. Restricted by her religion from smiling at a male photographer, …
It’s 4 a.m., and I’m sitting in the student call room eating dinner during a particularly busy night. A burrito has never tasted this good. Here’s the truth: medical school isn’t glamorous. More often than not, it involves long hours and late nights. There will be days where you come home and fall asleep before eating dinner. There will be 10-hour surgical cases with no bathroom breaks and mornings where rounds take five hours. You will …
It’s easy to see how the hospital can be an intimidating place for a patient. Being alone, in an unknown environment, covered only a flimsy cloth gown, and surrounded by strangers can make anyone anxious. Now, imagine not knowing what these strangers are saying to you, about you. Imagine these strangers cannot understand a single word you say. I had just finished up a previous case in the OR with the orthopedics team when the …
Dear freshly-crowned MS3s, Congratulations on making it to the best part of medical school! I hope that it has finally sunk in that classes and labs are over, and most importantly, you are on the other side of Step 1. It is finally time to take all of the facts that you learned from a textbook and apply them to a real-life person. It is the moment we all wait for and the reason we …
The usual morning solitude of the small rural Kansas hospital was shattered with the overhead announcement no one wants to hear. Code Blue. Stillness turned to ordered chaos. The room was quickly prepared for the impending arrival of the ambulance. We gathered as much information about the patient as possible. Nineteen years old. Overdose. Found unresponsive. Before we had time to assemble these disordered pieces of the puzzle, he had arrived. The entire staff responded …
I witnessed my first code while I was doing my first internal medicine rotation at a hospital in the Twin Cities; it just so happened to be one of my team’s patients. He was a difficult and grumpy guy who regularly swore at his nurses and refused parts of his health care. A couple days prior to the code, my team and I were group rounding when we visited him. He was his usual disgruntled …
Pursuing a career in health care has created opportunities I could have never imagined possible, welcomed or not. The bond a physician has with his patient is not something that can be recreated in any other field. Prior to medical school, I knew I would be exposed to situations and learn the intricate privacies that most people do not have the blessing to learn. But of course I could have never predicted how deep the …
Dear (future) self, I imagine that you’re busy right now. Like really busy. Like the coffee-driven, adrenaline-fueled, sleep-deprived kind of busy that you experienced to a lesser degree in medical school except now you’re actually expected to care for patients. Of course, by “care for patients,” I mean “avoid doing dumb things to patients.” A terrifying thought, the burden of patient care, but I’m sure you’re learning and becoming more confident by the day. Why, …
Maybe it’s the early mornings, maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, or perhaps it’s an early sign of caffeine intoxication, but a certain mythical feeling hits me when I walk into the OR. Not that I’m much of a spiritual person, but there’s just a whole hushed reverence that takes place. It’s a special “hallowed” space. No, I’m not trying to imply that the surgeons that I’ve worked with have such egos they demand to be …
It feels like we have been in medical school forever, and the neverending saga continues this spring. Perhaps first semester was a gauntlet of rough rotations and long calls, and now you’re counting on some R&R in the upcoming months. Or maybe, like me, you have already completed the clerkships that interested you, and you’ve found yourself low on enthusiasm for the leftovers. Perhaps your semester is back-loaded, and you’re staring down the barrel of …
There exist, in truth, three simple words that strike dread into the hearts of every physician: Do. You. Remember. This phrase was introduced to me in the middle of first year. I was spending time in my medical student lounge when a link popped up on my newsfeed to a TED talk by Dr. Brian Goldman, an emergency physician from Toronto who hosts the radio show White Coat Black Art and who has also authored the book “The Night Shift.” In …
Confession One: I am an OR moron. Take me out of the OR, and I’m like any other third-year medical student. High achieving with at least some capacity for normal adult functioning. I study, I cook, I pay my bills. I attend medical school, for goodness sake. Most people in this world would consider that the pinnacle of young adult functioning. But in the OR, none of this matters. In the OR, I’m like half …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Lindsay is a member of the Class of 2015 at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She is originally from Colorado Springs and earned a BA in chemistry from Bowdoin College. She plans on pursuing a career in psychiatry.
