Last summer, I had the incredible opportunity to present a case report as a poster at the Women in Ophthalmology Summer Symposium. As a premed student, this was exciting but also quite intimidating.
This meeting is a large national medical conference with about 1,500 attendees, including ophthalmologists of all career stages, many ophthalmology residents, and medical students interested in ophthalmology. I presented the case of a child who had experienced retinopathy …
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Patience is a notoriously hard skill to master. When working in health care, your patience is constantly tested, a lesson I have repeatedly learned in my time as a medical assistant in a large orthopedic surgery practice. Whether it is taking the time to reexplain instructions to a patient when I know am running behind in clinic, waiting on hold with another doctor’s office to obtain pertinent information regarding a …
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What drew me to spending my gap year as a medical assistant was the advertised “direct patient care experience.” While patient care is my favorite part of the job, it comes with its own unique challenges for a first-time health care worker.
An unexpected challenge that I had to overcome with patient care was learning how to touch patients. I am tasked daily with removing sutures, staples, assisting with wound care, …
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The words “gap year” are enough to panic any high-achieving premedical student with their heart set on matriculating straight into medical school. Many students feel like a gap year will set them back in their journey to become a doctor, adding more years to the ever-long path to an MD behind their name. What these students do not realize is the value that a meaningful gap year, or more, can …
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