Writer-in-Training
Emory University School of Medicine
Zaynah Alam is a member of the Class of 2021 at Emory University School of Medicine. She grew up in Chapel Hill, NC and has a BS in Neuroscience from Duke University. Her interests include science fiction, health as a human right, and eating at every pho restaurant in the city of Atlanta.
The room is unassuming from the outside. It’s a tiny space not much larger than a storage closet tucked into an office in the school of public health. I do my usual clinic routine in reverse: notebook pulled out of pocket and white coat slipped off and left outside.
We, as current and future health care providers, should actively participate in providing our patients with proper support and access to an interpreter.
To culminate a year rife with political turmoil, one final wildfire swept the nation at the close of 2017. After initial reports from inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting that it had received instruction to forbid the usage of seven words in its budget formulations, media outlets and the general public took en masse to declare a state of Orwellian emergency.
With constant attention to our mission, the in-Training Board regularly brainstorms new ways to reach our peers and serve the medical student community.
Greet the customer. Select the meat. Cut the meat. Clean the slicer. Wash the dishes. Sweep the floor. This is my daily routine at High-Venus Deli.
Conducting research in vulnerable populations and historically marginalized groups can be a delicate process, and because of this, safeguards intended to protect these exact groups can ultimately hinder the research process.
Over 100 years since the 1910 Flexner Report resulted in the closure of all but two predominantly Black medical schools, underrepresented minority medical students and faculty still struggle to surface amid the rising currents of medical education.
In 2006, Daisy Goodman first experienced a patient disclosing a narcotics addiction. A certified nurse midwife working in obstetrics, Goodman had had years of experience working with pregnant mothers to cultivate a healthy pregnancy and birth.
In promoting health justice, our team at Systemic Disease believes it is vital to recognize the connection between bias and adverse health outcomes. We utilized a discussion model provided by In-Training’s Beyond Illness Roundtable toolkit to guide a discussion on such interactions that exist across all interprofessional relationships and those that may cloud, strain and negatively impact individuals from teaching, learning and, above all, healing.
We strive to identify as a generation of idealists. / We are politically aware, socially conscious young adults. / We place our collective purchasing power behind products with a social mission.
With the future of the Affordable Care Act uncertain under President Trump, many Americans are left worrying how they will manage without health care. The Americans who must shoulder this burden are disproportionately people of color. It should come as no surprise to those familiar with the history of health care in this country that once again our system, purportedly built to protect and promote health, is systematically ignoring the right to health care for communities of color.
When I was six, a set of strawberry hair ties foiled my endeavor for independence. My mother had a way of twisting the plastic ornaments at the end of her operation so they sat together like two friends on a bus, neat and obedient at the crown of my head. Despite my assertions, (“I can do it myself!”) I could never align their orbits.
Writer-in-Training and in-Training Staff Member
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
The white coat is a scary, scary thing, and I'm still trying to figure out if I should have one. If you like screaming about ethnic rage, dance, or the woes of medical education, we should probably do some of those fun activities that friends do.
I have few answers, many questions. Dialogue is huge. Feel free to email with questions and comments!
