Anna Delamerced is a medical student.
Racism is a pandemic that has long existed before COVID-19.
As a fourth-year medical student, I have been rotating in the hospitals and recently finished my sub-internship. Whether on the wards or in outpatient clinics, a recurring phrase would hover from one provider to the next, depending on how busy their week was: “black cloud” and “white cloud.”
In the medical world, the former has often been used to describe trainees or …
Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd.
We speak their names out when they no longer can.
As a medical student, I have learned and recognized the many prejudices underlying our healthcare system against persons of color. Racism runs rampant in hospitals and clinics – places that are meant to heal, not to hurt. Black patients, in particular, suffer biases that result in disparities and even Read more…
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
These verses flashed on my computer screen, the glare lighting my face as I sat in my bedroom. I paused my usual work and …
Photos of health care providers in prayerful stances are being shared on the web. From nurses on helipads at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to ER teams at Jackson South Medical Center, people have been photographed on their knees, arms outstretched, and heads bowed. In Atlanta, doctors and nurses went up to the roof of Cartersville Hospital to join …
Every aspect of life has been affected by COVID-19, including medical education.
Since March 17, medical schools across the nation have suspended clinical rotations, per guidelines from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The target end date for this temporary pause was set originally to March 31.
The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) followed suit, declaring that Prometric testing centers were closing …
My friends’ weddings have been postponed, even my own cousin’s.
Step 1 exam dates have been moved, much to the shock of many students I know. My brother’s third-year rotations have also been delayed, and the curriculum has unexpectedly changed from the original schedules he and his classmates had.
My fourth-year friends’ Match Days and trips to celebrate with loved ones have been canceled.
This spring, I was going to visit my grandparents …
It was my first week of internal medicine rotation. A newly-minted third-year, I was rotating on the wards back in the spring, when I met a 90-something-year-old gentleman. He had come in for confusion after a fall.
There were no relatives or friends in the waiting room.
I was assigned to follow him. During his stay, his words were few; it was often difficult to engage him in conversation. Whenever I pre-rounded, …
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