Contributing Writer
University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania
Allen is a third year medical student at University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He is interested in the wonders of basic science in transforming lives. In his free time, Allen enjoys playing soccer, reading and spending time with friends. After medical school, Allen's single pursuit is to become a surgeon.
I just finished my two month surgery rotation, and as a third year medical student new to the wards, I had a steep learning curve. One of the things I learned the hard way, causing me to nearly cry during rounds, was how to properly present a patient’s history and physical examination findings.
They asked me how that encounter had gone, and I could feel my cheeks turn bright red. I was embarrassed that I was not able to connect with my patient.
I know that being a third-year medical student is like being a transplanted kidney. One starts the day in one body. School is composed of lecture halls and written exams. However, the world has shifted by the end of the day, and shockingly, one’s old body is not present.
If gross anatomy has taught me any topics, they are the sheer beauty and capability of the human body.
When I was younger, I, too, had problems both with listening to my M.D. and alcohol use. However, I am not referring to M.D. as in medical doctor but M.D. as in mom and dad.
After our first year of coursework, our LC mentors asked us to write a confidential letter to our “2016 self,” or ourselves at the time just before we began medical school. Right away, I recalled that at that time, I was a nervous wreck.
It was not until our second semester of medical school that we started gross anatomy. Finally, I became that quintessential medical student walking home too tired to change out of my formaldehyde-tinged scrubs.
Second year? Could that be? It felt wrong. It threw off my whole identity. “I’m just a first-year,” had been my motto for the past twelve months.
Medicine is a sacrifice. I knew this upon admittance into medical school. I did not know the sacrifice would be an erosion of my humanity.
While there is no way to choose our patients’ outcomes, we can certainly choose to be empathetic and compassionate regardless of their outcomes. Medicine without empathy and compassion is not medicine at all.
Whenever my friends or family ask, “How’s medical school?” I have a simple, scripted response … But this response relays a fraction of what medical school has been like.
A decision was at hand. Which trail would lead him where he wanted to go? The right or left? Both or neither? A simple choice. An impossible choice.
Contributing Writer
Medical College of Wisconsin
I am currently a third-year medical student at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I have been writing fiction since fourth grade, but medicine has given me a new lens through which to explore non-fiction, as well. I believe in the healing power of creating writing and self-expression. In the face of difficult training, tapping into my creativity helps to feed my soul and keep me in touch with the humanity that made me choose medicine in the first place.
