Contributing Writer
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Sarah Kim is a medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, New Jersey. In 2022, she graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. She enjoys cross-stitching, reading, playing piano or guitar, and running in her free time.
I walk into my patient’s room as he is receiving a blood transfusion with a guitar strapped across my back and sheet music in hand. He is used to seeing me in the early mornings when the surgical team rounds. He has been in the hospital for a week now, recovering from a liver cancer resection. He had joked with me in the operating room before he went under anesthesia, and I had looked forward …
As I drive to class most days, I turn on the radio to one of my favorite stations and listen to music while I wade through unremitting traffic. The station is great for those who enjoy rock music, and I often find myself absorbed in a newer or older song that resonates with me on different levels.
Columnist, Medical Student Editor and Former Managing Editor (2017-2018)
OU-TU School of Community Medicine
Ashten Duncan is a third-year medical student at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A 2018-2019 Albert Schweitzer Fellow, he recently received his Master of Public Health (MPH) with an interdisciplinary focus from the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health. Ashten attended the University of Oklahoma for his undergraduate program, completing a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Microbiology and minors in Chemistry and French. An aspiring family physician, Ashten is currently on a National Health Service Corps scholarship. His research interests include hope theory, burnout in medical education, and positive psychology in vulnerable populations. Ashten is passionate about creative writing and what it represents. He has written pieces that have been published on KevinMD.com and in-Training.org and in Blood and Thunder and The Practical Playbook. Ashten is currently serving as Associate Author for the upcoming edition of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1.
The Lived Experience
As medical students, we sometimes lose sight of our purpose for going into medicine and feel that we are exerting ourselves excessively with little feedback from our environment. It is important that we remember that, while we are living through the experiences that come with our training, our future patients are also living through their own experiences. The focus of this column is to examine topics in positive psychology, lifestyle medicine, public health and other areas and reflect on how these topics relate to medical students, physicians and patients alike.
