An excerpt from The Premed Paradox. As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of…
As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of the lidocaine vial, and snapped off the top as required. To my absolute shock, I immediately felt the glass tip of the vial penetrate both gauze padding and sterile glove, …
Intro My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this "about to become a doctor" and his mother, "a…
Intro
My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this “about to become a doctor” and his mother, “a long-time doctor,” to have a conversation about the journey. I realize now after transcribing and editing our conversations that this was much more than my life as a pediatrician; it was …
Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know. For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences.…
Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know.
For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences. Build clinical knowledge upon that foundation. Then provide supervised clinical experience until the student becomes capable of practicing medicine. That model has served medicine extraordinarily well.
As I draped the ultrasound table and laid out the sterile speculum, I noticed my patient's shoulders were locked near her ears. Her chart noted a history of failed fertility cycles, but her vitals on the intake sheet were perfectly…
As I draped the ultrasound table and laid out the sterile speculum, I noticed my patient’s shoulders were locked near her ears. Her chart noted a history of failed fertility cycles, but her vitals on the intake sheet were perfectly normal.
It would have been easy to finish setting up the tray, check the box, and fetch the physician. Instead, I paused and asked, “How are you holding up today?”
It was the month of February; there was a different excitement and joy in my family as we were planning my little brother's Bratabanda. It was special not only because we had a special occasion but also because it was…
It was the month of February; there was a different excitement and joy in my family as we were planning my little brother’s Bratabanda. It was special not only because we had a special occasion but also because it was the very first function organized by my family. On the Bratabanda day, we were all very busy, and the party was about to end; my father’s school friend group joined. …
Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don't write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can't be written by just anyone. They have to…
Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don’t write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can’t be written by just anyone. They have to come from a clinician with the credentials to back up what’s being taught.
That’s a standing demand for physician expertise. Most physicians have no idea they qualify.
I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone. What surprised me was not the number of infographics…
I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone.
What surprised me was not the number of infographics available. It was how difficult it had become to determine who created them, where the information came from, or whether the content had been reviewed by anyone with medical expertise.
"It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life." The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though,…
“It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life.”
The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though, was how long and how memorably physicians carried it.
Like many students, I came to medicine with the belief that progress meant getting closer to certainty. Having seen organ trafficking firsthand, I …
An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole? Many students believe taking…
An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole?
Many students believe taking a gap year improves their admission chances. While compounding variables prevent conclusive proof that a gap year directly helps, the extra time is understandably attractive, as it allows students to …
"People aren't the problem. The problem is the problem." I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn't know then that I…
“People aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem.” I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn’t know then that I was about to spend the rest of my medical training inside an institution that had reached the exact same conclusion decades earlier, and then largely failed to live by it.
As a health care educator and patient advocate on the one hand, and a retired nurse on the other, the authors regularly correspond with doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Richard Lawhern is a nationally recognized subject matter expert on pain…
As a health care educator and patient advocate on the one hand, and a retired nurse on the other, the authors regularly correspond with doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Richard Lawhern is a nationally recognized subject matter expert on pain management. Debra Lewis is a retired nurse who shares stories here of some of the nurses who were referred to her for tutoring after graduating from nursing school but failing …
As a radiology technician and a stroke survivor, my professional journey has been deeply shaped by my personal experiences. In clinical education, we often focus on technical proficiency, but we rarely discuss the structural and social barriers faced by health…
As a radiology technician and a stroke survivor, my professional journey has been deeply shaped by my personal experiences. In clinical education, we often focus on technical proficiency, but we rarely discuss the structural and social barriers faced by health care professionals with disabilities. This reflection is not a piece of research, but a call to re-evaluate our approach to inclusion in medical training.
Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set? Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question.…
Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set?
Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question. USMLE Step 1 is now reported as pass/fail, removing its score variations as a screening variable. USMLE Step 3 scores are rarely available at the time of application, since most applicants …
Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That's necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody's pricing in is how long it takes…
Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That’s necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody’s pricing in is how long it takes to produce a surgeon who can operate independently, and that number is quietly getting longer. Cuts in one place always show up in another, and it’s often education that takes …
The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient's life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor's…
The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient’s life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor’s hands resting on her abdomen.
Like my peers at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, I have spent years learning the language of modern medicine: lab values, imaging findings, differential …
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America's health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black…
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America’s health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black physicians, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, and biomedical scientists. At a time when the United States faces physician shortages, widening health disparities, and declining access to care in underserved communities, …
It was almost midnight, and I was staring at the word oxybutynin like it had personally wronged me. I had seen it maybe twenty times that week. Flashcard, missed. Practice question, missed. I knew it treated something with the bladder,…
It was almost midnight, and I was staring at the word oxybutynin like it had personally wronged me.
I had seen it maybe twenty times that week. Flashcard, missed. Practice question, missed. I knew it treated something with the bladder, I think, and that it blocked some receptor, and past that, my brain just went quiet. Around me, the library was clearing out. I had two hundred more drugs to learn, …
Everything medical schools believe about us seems wrong. Medical schools call us "Native American," but many of us dislike this word. The traditional among us refuse this colonial branding with every fiber of our being. Yet many people believe the…
Everything medical schools believe about us seems wrong. Medical schools call us “Native American,” but many of us dislike this word. The traditional among us refuse this colonial branding with every fiber of our being. Yet many people believe the media that says “Indian” is offensive and so they call us “Native American.” Ask yourself: Would a Ukrainian mother ever call herself Native Russian? Would a Palestinian man ever call …
Artificial intelligence has been part of conversations about the future of medicine for years. As a medical student, I have heard about its potential in lectures, read about its development in health care, and watched discussions about how it may…
Artificial intelligence has been part of conversations about the future of medicine for years. As a medical student, I have heard about its potential in lectures, read about its development in health care, and watched discussions about how it may change the way physicians practice. For a long time, though, it felt like something that would arrive later, after I had already learned how to be a doctor.
"It's not just the kids, it's the parents." My sex education came in two forms: an abstinence jingle in middle school, and a sock on a banana in high school. My parents offered a third option: silence. Decades later, not…
“It’s not just the kids, it’s the parents.”
My sex education came in two forms: an abstinence jingle in middle school, and a sock on a banana in high school. My parents offered a third option: silence. Decades later, not only are individuals’ reproductive rights being stripped away, but reproductive health education in any form is threatened by the federal government at all levels, from elementary schools to medical residencies.
