Education

The secret to success in medical school: self-awareness and courage

Education
March 12, 2023

Self-awareness and courage. Out of all the information and knowledge you gain during medical school, from a personal development standpoint, I would say that self-awareness and consistent courage are what make the difference between a good student and an excellent student. As a third-year medical student, I can confidently say that beginning medical school with these traits and continuing to keep these traits close during medical school will take you …

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Is mandating pre-medical training widening disparities in the U.S. physician workforce?

Education
March 8, 2023

Around 75 percent of U.S. physicians are U.S. MD/DOs who have completed pre-medical training, while the remaining 25 percent are international medical graduates (IMGs) who may not have completed pre-medical training but are still able to take the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) and become licensed to practice medicine in the U.S.

From the patient’s perspective, pre-medical training may not be necessary unless pre-medical training-deficient IMGs are not evenly distributed …

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Equalizing the future of medical residencies: standardizing work hours and wages

Education
March 2, 2023

In the United States, work hours are traditionally recorded on a weekly basis, and salaries are paid every two weeks. However, full-time employees (FTEs) work for a full year and receive a W-2 annually. FTEs are usually hired based on an annual wage divided into 26 bi-weekly paychecks. Tracking weekly work hours can lead to inconsistencies in time recording, so it might be better for both employers and FTEs to …

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The power of advocacy: a medical student’s journey to helping an uninsured immigrant

Education
February 21, 2023

It’s the day of my last case presentation for my neurology rotation. Hearing the subway doors shut, I run up the stairs just in time to see them close. Breathless, I walk to the center of the platform. Noting the next train isn’t coming for another seven minutes, I groan in frustration and pull out my notes to spend the time to prepare.

I see a woman approaching me from the …

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From AI to love: the key to a better future in medical education

Education
February 20, 2023

With the recent news of ChatGPT artificial intelligence successfully passing the United States Medical Licensure Exam (USMLE), we have been catapulted into a new era in medicine and medical education. What has always been regarded exclusively as a human skill and profession has now been demonstrated to be technically mastered by artificial intelligence. Rightfully, the detractors today will say that passing a board exam does not make …

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The cost of overpreparing: my experience with the USMLE and what I learned

Education
February 19, 2023

“It’s all in your head.”

When my friends, family, and mentors said these five words to me in the days leading up to the pre-pass/fail USMLE Step 1 exam, they meant it literally: everything you need to know to succeed is already in your head. When my internal dialogue repeated those words, they took on a different meaning. The question banks had been answered, and the …

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Trauma in an interview: a not-so-perfect personal statement

Education
February 19, 2023

I have to write a “perfect medical school personal statement.” I have to write about learning and growth. I want to show empathy and grit. Most of all, I must resonate with the medical school admissions committee reading my story.

The overwhelming consensus around Student Doctor Network, the forum of terrible but successful premeds, is: don’t make waves. Adcoms can be radical feminists or religious fundamentalists, born from wealth or recently …

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Is medicine right for you? Exploring the benefits and challenges of a health care career.

Education
February 16, 2023

As a current medical student, I often encounter students considering a health care career. Understandably, this career is appealing. Being a physician lets you make a positive impact on people’s lives, along with many other benefits. However, becoming a physician is not a straightforward decision and requires a lot of thought, consideration, and sacrifice. This blog post, written for anyone considering medical school, will explore the pros and cons of …

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Proposing solutions to end bias in the medical residency selection process

Education
February 14, 2023

Getting into medical school is arguably the largest barrier to entry into the physician profession, but it is not the only one. Previously, I covered who gets to succeed in medical school and who gets to graduate. In this article, I look at who gets to be a resident.

After completing medical school, the next step for a graduate is residency—the post-graduate training that every new physician goes through to practice in …

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Focused to a fault: Medical education and how it holds us hostage from living well

Education
February 10, 2023

One of the head-scratchers about American culture is that anxiety, depression, unwanted weight gain, and a soaring prevalence of lifestyle diseases clearly plague our society. Yet, the primary metric we use to measure our country’s “success,” GDP, doesn’t even account for this suffering.

Society has a variety of needs that must be met to be truly successful, not just economically productive. As Senator Robert Kennedy memorably said, “GDP measures everything …

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The medical school selection process may be more crucial for shaping the future physician workforce 

Education
January 18, 2023

Every year, thousands of applicants in the United States register for the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). Many graduate medical education (GME) programs receive thousands of applications that are reviewed by recruitment teams with fewer than ten faculty members. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of applications for GME programs and an overwhelming number of interviews for ERAS applicants, even though only a few hundred …

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Protecting reproductive rights: the importance of abortion training for medical trainees

Education
January 15, 2023

As I was walking between classes as a pre-medical undergraduate student in 2018, I saw that the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment was distributing hats that read “PROTECT ROE v. WADE.” I picked one up and stepped into my classroom, only to be greeted by a classmate who said, “Protect Roe v. Wade? Why would it need protection?”

Fast-forward four years, I sat in my bedroom, selfishly thankful that I had …

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The uncomfortable truths about comfortable scrubs

Education
January 9, 2023

I love joggers. If I had to pick a piece of clothing to wear every day for the rest of my life, it would be joggers. I wear them constantly — outside the hospital, that is.

These days, this choice makes me an anomaly. Like the ubiquitous clogs in the OR, jogger-style scrubs have taken over hospital floors, replacing classic ill-fitting, hospital-issued scrub sets. This is especially true among young women. …

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Shame as an unethical teaching tool

Education
January 1, 2023

The senior medical student is hours into her on-call shift on her surgical rotation. She’s been up since four, exhausted, and can’t remember if she had eaten anything since breakfast. The staff surgeon on call “pimps” her on surgical anatomy, pointing at the various arteries and veins in the patient lying in front of them on the operating table. The student has difficulty remembering the various arteries and nerves while …

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7 tips to survive night float  

Education
December 31, 2022

My friend texted me the other day that she was thinking of quitting her training program.

Some schedule changes earlier in the year led to her being scheduled for back-to-back month-long night float rotations. She was in the middle of her second straight month of nights and was feeling tired, depressed, and burned out.

Now, this might be a unique situation since night float rotations, on average, are only one to two …

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A medical student’s greatest mistake

Education
December 23, 2022

I made a mistake.

I almost failed out of undergrad as a premed. Yet this wasn’t the greatest mistake, the one that’s only now dawning on me as I stand at a crossroads in considerable decision-making despair.

Growing up in a loving yet highly dysfunctional home, I turned down a full presidential scholarship to attend a highly coveted college to make my parents, who grew up impoverished, proud. Yet the lingering trauma …

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Is it really a woke nightmare for medical schools?

Education
December 13, 2022

Among the many definitions and meanings of the terms “woke” and “wokeism,” the two that capture the ideology best are contrasting meanings. The definitions are:

“The behavior and attitudes of people who are sensitive to social and political injustice” (Collins English Dictionary),

and:

“A system of thought and behavior characterized by intolerance, policing the speech of others and proving one’s own superiority by denouncing others” (Psychology Today).

The first implies a benevolent society that …

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Who gets to succeed in medical school: Improving medical student outcomes that matter

Education
December 9, 2022

As I mentioned in my last article, “Who gets to graduate from medical school,” I find one consistent, uncomfortable truth: Whatever led to the gap in academic performance before medical school is likely to still be present and persistent during one’s medical education journey. The lack of access, inequitable distribution of opportunity, familial responsibilities, socioeconomic disparities, or systemic barriers that kept students from utilizing their full academic potential in …

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