Irma Faruqi is an emergency physician.

The struggle of internationally trained physicians in Canada

Physician
April 27, 2023

I moved to Ontario, Canada, a little less than a year ago, with a sense of adventure and a spring in my step. I was excited at the thought of being reunited with family, apprehensive about the hurdles in my path to becoming a practicing physician, but hopeful that there would be light at the end of the tunnel. There had to be.

I had been chief resident at an ACGME-accredited …

Read more…

The struggle of internationally trained physicians in Canada

When medical students first deal with death

Medical Education
March 20, 2012

Very few are as starkly aware of the transience of life as those working in the healthcare profession. We are expected to be, for want of a better word, immune to it; as if each death we face is somehow a vaccine that will eventually, with regular booster doses, provide us with enough immunity to be resistant to the Grim Reaper.

We spend years studying, arming ourselves with pages and pages …

Read more…

When medical students first deal with death

Doctors learn through mistakes during medical school

Medical Education
August 29, 2011

In most other professions, once you’re halfway through your education, you begin to develop confidence; slowly, but surely, fitting into shoes that once seemed too big for your petite, newbie feet. Not so in medicine.

Three years into it, and I still feel unsure – unsure of the answer to a rather simple question asked by an attending and unsure of whether I’m fit to be doing this in the first …

Read more…

Doctors learn through mistakes during medical school