I was walking home from classes last week when I ran into a few friends from my medical school class sitting outside at a local bar. I was done for the evening, so I pulled up a chair, ordered a beer, and joined the conversation. They were talking about the wards. I’ve been on a year off since we’d all been third-year medical students together, so it was fun to …
I saw a patient last week for her chest pain. A 60-year-old woman came into the hospital because her chest tightened every time she went running. The pain would last about 20 minutes, centered on the left side of her chest, and radiated to her left arm. It lasted until she would finally take a break from running and sit down.
“This is classic,” I thought. “Stable angina.” I could now …
Training doctors is no easy task. After medical school, newly minted doctors enroll in residency programs at various hospitals throughout the country for a length of 3 to 8 years, depending on their specialty. Some specialties, like family medicine, are even considering adding another year to the process. Resident physicians spend this time working long, arduous hours under their attending physicians, learning the clinical intricacies of their specialties that could not …
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