The humble beginnings of in-Training often obscure the grand aspirations of the magazine. Since the first article on July 2, 2012, we have published 1000 articles from 450 different authors, curated by our team of over 40 editors, representing 152 different medical schools throughout the world. This is quite the accomplishment for a magazine that was born out of a simple conversation.
At in-Training, we consider ourselves the agora of the medical student community, and want to continue being the center of medical student discussion. The magazine has grown to reflect the attitude of our constituency: we’ve made a concerted effort to publish, in addition to our excellent reflective and humanism pieces, more work on social justice, politics and health policy. This change has resulted in our campaign to raise awareness about mental health, to discuss the controversy surrounding the USMLE Step 2 CS (which resulted in the USMLE changing the FAQ section of their website to address the concerns our article and the #endstep2cs initiative raised), to publish in-depth interviews with Flint, Michigan community, and to critique cultural competency, to provide just a few examples of the ways we hoped to stimulate discussion. Additionally, in-Training has gone from the Internet to the printed word by publishing in-Training: Stories from Tomorrow’s Physicians. This book represents a series of articles and commentary from medical students around the world and is currently being used in medical school curricula to discuss humanism in medicine.
Yet there is still much to do and, much like public radio, we would be nothing without the support from readers like you. Consider this message a direct solicitation to submit your artwork, poetry, research, thoughts, frustrations, anxiety, despair, insecurity, skepticism and general human experiences to in-Training. We, and almost half a million site users who have contributed 1.7 million pageviews, want to hear what you have to say. Help us publish our next 1000 articles and, in the meantime, look for in-Training to grow: we hope to expand by developing a mobile phone app, to push for additional international content (past the dozen or so countries we currently represent), and to publish even more of our outstanding articles and books. Most importantly — we want to hear from you about what you want in-Training to be.
Thank you for your support over the past four years and sharing your medical school experiences with us. We are truly fortunate to be able to publish our peer-edited content, and we hope you will continue to spread the word about in-Training and the benefits of writing.
Consulting Editor, Former Editor-in-Chief (2015-2017) and Former Medical Student Editor (2014-2015)
University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine
Hi everyone! My name is Joe Ladowski and I am a MSTP (MD/PhD) student at University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine. I am originally from Fort Wayne, IN I attended undergraduate at the University of Chicago and graduated in 2012 with a degree in Biological Sciences with a Specialization in Endocrinology. While at the UofC I was an active member of the school's rugby team, a volunteer with Global Brigades, and spent my free electives taking courses in Medical Ethics. Right now I'm leaning towards a career in surgery, possibly transplant surgery. My research focuses on xenotransplantation, genetically modifying pigs for human transplant.
Aside from the normal medical student stuff I'm interested in the ethics of organ allocation and the policy behind the current laws. I love reading all sorts of books and would love to teach someday. I was also actively involved in my school's medical spanish, medical ethics, and medical student book clubs.
