I got home recently after a 14 hour day in the operating room with (predictably) a pair of really tired feet, which lead me to think about shoes, foot rubs, and the fact that no one ever talked to me about this in my training.What kind of shoes should you wear in the hospital?There’s a lot of walking in the hospital, but there’s even more standing. Running shoes don’t provide ...
Mary L. Brandt, MD
How medical residents should spend their time off
Here’s the scenario. It’s Friday evening. You’ll be back at work on Sunday. You’re sleep deprived because you are a resident. You haven’t spent any quality time with your significant other, friends or family because you haven’t had any real time off. Next week has plenty of call and it would really help if you planned out good food for the week and cooked something. And, by the way, ...
Practical advice for medical students starting clinical rotations
Here's some advice to think about before starting clinical rotations during the third year of medical school.Don’t sit in the back of the planeThe basic sciences are important to learn the vocabulary and grammar of medicine. Clinical rotations are different – it’s where you actually learn to be a physician. If you use the analogy of learning to fly, ...
Rules to help you during medical school
Medical school is a wonderful, but at times difficult experience. As you start this fantastic journey, there are a few "rules" I think might help.1. You can drink from a fire hydrant, but you’ll need to learn how. The amount of information you are going to be exposed to in medical school is logarithmically more than you had to learn in ...
Using failure as motivation for medical residents
Dear Dr. Brandt,
As a second year medical student, I know that my peers and I all struggle with what we view as "failure" at some point or another. I imagine this problem doesn’t stop (... ever), especially since medicine seems to attract people who hold themselves to extremely high, if not impossible, standards. If you’re looking for topics, I wonder if you might have some insight to offer on how ...
Taking a multivitamin, vitamin D and fish oil every day
There is very little doubt that if we eat the diet we were designed to eat and spend adequate time in the sun that we will get most if not all the nutrients we need.That’s the ideal, but not the reality for a lot of us. I was recently advised by a group of physicians who are experts in the area that it is reasonable, and probably preferable, for adults ...
