Medical school
The future of medicine is now: AI’s role in diagnostics and treatment
OpenAI’s ChatGPT took the world by storm a couple of months ago when they opened it up for public use. Since then, people have shown the infinite number of ways it can be applied in just about every area of life, from telling you the recipe for your favorite food to writing scientific abstracts that are essentially indistinguishable from real ones.
It offers insights and ideas to abstract questions and truly …
The medical school selection process may be more crucial for shaping the future physician workforce
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 …
Who are we losing on the medical education journey? [PODCAST]
Think you aren’t a part of the destruction of the medical profession? Think again.
As apparent as it may be to the predators of the medical profession, physicians themselves, thinking about the future of what the medical profession will be like by 2040, have yet to understand how they continue to be astonishingly complicit in the upcoming radical changes in health care and the medical profession.
You and I know that all physicians in our nation, especially those in clinical medical practice, have been brainwashed …
A medical student’s greatest mistake
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 …
A retired physician’s medical school memories
An excerpt from Fifty Years a Doctor: The Journey of Sickness and Health, Four Plagues and the Pandemic.
President Kennedy’s assassination
One cold winter morning, all the medical students had to leave the warmth of the medical school to get to Kings County Hospital across the street for “rounding” with attendings.
We didn’t …
The mistress of medicine
When I married my husband, I had no idea there would be a mistress one day.
When I met the man who would become my husband, he was not yet a doctor. He was 22, a black belt, a waiter in a fancy restaurant, and very handsome. He knew all kinds of things about champagne and paté, cocktails, and sushi.
We met in our college martial arts club. I was 19 and …
Is it really a woke nightmare for medical schools?
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 …
Sexual health is health: It’s time to embrace that in medicine
For many of us, while in medical school and residency, sexual health history was mostly taught from a disease standpoint. If a patient had a complaint about sexual dysfunction, had a symptom or concern about a sexually transmitted infection, needed contraception, or had specific questions related to the reproductive system, then we took a sexual history. Sexual health history taking in many programs is limited to an elective in the …
Who gets to succeed in medical school: Improving medical student outcomes that matter
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 …
When should you consider a Caribbean medical school? [PODCAST]
From Uber driver to Harvard Medical School
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?”
– “Harlem” by Langston Hughes
“$23.46,” the Walmart cashier distractedly mentioned to me as I got ready for my first ride. I had signed up and passed the background check. My …
The immediate impact of the transition to a pass/fail Step 1 exam
Historically, students’ three-digit scores on the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 were a main factor in determining competitiveness for residency programs. In February 2020, the world of medical education shifted drastically when it was announced that the USMLE Step 1 would transition to a pass/fail scoring system. One of the main factors driving this change was that medical students and residency programs were attributing too much …
Effective doctors need to be challenged [PODCAST]
Medical school admissions: wokeism vs. the Bible
According to Psychology Today, wokeism is defined as a system of thought and behavior characterized by intolerance, policing the speech of others and proving one’s own superiority by denouncing others.
In a September 2, 2022, article in the New York Post titled, “Top med school putting wokeism ahead of giving America good doctors,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb and Laura Morgan shed light on recent efforts to allow wokeism to infiltrate the …
Who gets to graduate from medical school?
Getting into medical school is only the first step of an intense journey. Undergoing the admission process and being accepted into medical school can be an exceptional challenge, especially as a student of color, but it isn’t the only hurdle. In a previous article, I outlined the medical school admission process, its reliance on MCAT scores, and key experiences, which are highly influenced by unequally distributed opportunities. I also shared …
Let’s meet in child’s pose and welcome the day
Anyone who has ever practiced yoga knows what that means. Child’s pose. Kneeling with toes untucked. Upper body hinged over the hips with arms outstretched and forehead resting against the mat. Breathing. In and out. In. And. Out. We are told it’s a recovery position, a safe place.
Whenever we are feeling overwhelmed with another position, or even if the position is not just clicking, we can find rest in something …
Making it work when you’re married to a medical student
My husband’s medical school offered a “key supporters” session during his first-year orientation week. Each student’s family or significant other was invited to attend a two-hour session to learn the schedule of a student doctor and for a panel discussion from current students and their key supporters.
Most people walking out of the room afterward were really nervous. It sounded like students were studying 15 hours a day with no more …
Using simulations to improve medical decision making [PODCAST]
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