Contributing Writer
University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
I am currently a fourth year medical student in the SELECT Program at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. With a background in Spanish Literature and Public Health, I am interested in the intersection of medicine and the humanities. I have a particular interest in the understanding of disease through the lens of psychosocial issues, the correctional healthcare system, and underserved populations. I am passionate about observing and writing about medical culture, and how we, as patients and providers, experience it.
I had just finished my second test in medical school. I flopped down next to a fellow student I met barely a month ago, exasperated and on the verge of tears. I was exhausted and quickly becoming emotional, realizing I was too uncertain about a (large) handful of those musculoskeletal questions.
Looking in the mirror, a different person peers out at me — a stranger even. This stranger has bags under his eyes and a permanently exhausted look. This man seems a little haggard, unshaven and scruffy. Gray hairs scatter themselves around a 25-year-old head, but what most makes him look different are his eyes.
“Why did you want to become a doctor?” I hate that question. It makes me cringe every time I hear it. Honestly, I went into medicine because my parents wanted me to. But that answer sounds mildly insufficient, so I feel obliged to give my customary “I love science and I want to help people” reply.
Now that I have finished my PhD and moved on to the rest of my medical training, the last few months have been an interesting change of pace. Since I took first-year medical school classes piecemeal while spending the majority of my time working on my doctoral research, being a full-time medical student now is a new experience (and a culture shock in some ways) for me! I’ve had to reevaluate the utility of my …
how quickly one turns on oneself inner demons circling overhead like opportunistic infections ready to invade predator and prey so vulnerable unprotected and unarmed. survival of the fittest I wrote this poem just a few weeks ago during a moment of overwhelming emotions that felt all too familiar. I’ve been writing poetry since middle school; it has always been a source of refuge for me, an outlet for my deepest fears and anxieties. Letting my …
As I was standing in my apartment building’s laundry room scrubbing away at a stubborn coffee stain, I kept up a steady stream of curses at my white coat. In the seven weeks since I’d first donned it, my coat had apparently decided that it preferred to be any color but white. A Tide-to-Go pen is now a permanent fixture in my pocket, and it’s used almost as often as the actual pens. It’s odd …
I walked into the medical school this morning, happy to back in a place I’d not seen much of in a year and a half. I stopped midstride as I saw a sea of new faces sitting in the common area. The faces I saw were young and eager, full of promise, hope, and fear — clearly new first-years. It struck me then, as I began to walk more slowly through the hallowed halls that …
It was just supposed to be a temporary job. At least that was what I envisioned when I started my position as a standardized patient at Albany Medical College. Four months earlier, I graduated a semester early from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama. When I applied to be an standardized patient (SP), I was searching for a way to take my acting career to the next level. …
42 months. 1260 days. That is how much education is squeezed into the 45 months following that exciting first day when we were full of eagerness and had our white coats donned on us for the first time. There are two winter breaks and two spring breaks that offer much needed respite and shelter from the continuous downpour of medical knowledge being entrusted to us over these 45 months. Two winter breaks, two spring breaks, …
Developing moderately-severe to severe sensorineural hearing loss in my last year of college came as a total shock. My first reaction was a combination of bewilderment and denial. Every day I hoped I was getting better, but repeated tests showed nothing was improving. By what I felt was necessity, I became quite isolated. Repeated attempts at social engagement led to repeated failure. It was very difficult to understand what anyone was saying, particularly in locations …
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 …
You know you have a problem when you can’t fall asleep at night. That’s where I was nearing at the end of anatomy in my first year of medical school. I couldn’t sleep because I was terrified of what the next day held. My sympathetic nervous system was on full alert, ready to handle the next day. The only thing between the next day and me was a night of sleep that seemed harder and …
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Toledo College of Medicine
Sam Scott is a Class of 2015 medical student in Northwest Ohio who spends his time studying, writing, advocating for the poor and pursuing the end of modern day slavery, more commonly known as human trafficking. In previous lives he's been a re-founding father of Phi Delta Theta International Fraternity, analytical chemist, youth pastor in west Dayton, OH, missions host in Dayton, and an intern in Kenya. He cares about maintaining empathy in physicians, and empowering those in need to get the help they need to stand on their feet. He's likely to become a pediatrician or psychiatrist in the near future, but will certainly become an author when his first book In Over My Head leaves the printing press for the shelves in early 2014. For more information visit his website at www.iamsamscott.com.
