Let’s talk a little bit about health equity and my experiences related to health equity. First of all, what is health equity? In a report designed to increase consensus around meaning of health equity, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provides the following definition: “Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity […]
Diversity—What Do You Bring to the Table?
If you were to ask any one person in a room, I bet you that everyone would have a different definition of what diversity means to that person—some along the same lines and for others, maybe not so much. Something I think we should all think about, however, is what types of diversity do we […]
Residency: Is It Possible to Have Fun?
Residency is hard. PERIOD. It doesn’t matter what specialty you decide to pursue; each program has its unique challenges and there’s a huge learning curve. In fact, you’re learning your trade over several years. It takes time and experience. But it’s not all bad! In fact, I really do enjoy residency. There are good days […]
Making the Abstract Real
I am certain that I am not the only one who spent much of their early experiences with research attempting to do sufficient work to get our names on a paper or presentation. After years and numerous projects what I never expected to hear from a mentor was “This was solely your work. I had […]
Go Northwest(ern) Young Man
Now that I have matched I would like to discuss what attracted me to Northwestern as one of my top choices for residency. Northwestern first impressed me not in scheduling an interview but canceling one. One of the unique challenges of the virtual application season was the occasional surprise interview invitation. Having scheduled my initial […]
Match Day
The open air was electric with anticipation. My entire med school class had set up camping chairs around a stage erected in the husk of an old drive-in movie theater and each family huddled around their medical student as they frantically refreshed their emails. Up on stage, one of our medical school Deans was extemporizing […]
Where I Matched
On March 19th I along with thousands of my colleagues across the country found out where I would spend the next step of our training. In my case I will be heading to Northwestern, culminating what now jokingly but for a quite some time seriously was considered by my parent’s and I as “the worst […]
Book Review: Walking a Tightrope
As the COVID-19 pandemic approached the 1-year mark I became interested in the history of Wuhan China, particularly from a medical standpoint. For more of this historical reflection in detail feel free to refer to my post “Lessons from Wuhan’s Past and Present“. As part of this effort, I came across the work Walking a […]
Weight of our Words
At the close of 2020, I was struck by two instances of doctors speaking their minds and facing the consequences for it. As both took me greatly by surprise I thought writing through it would help me organize and process my thoughts. The first instance I wanted to think back on was the issuing […]
On the Wings and Mouths of Black Flies
I find it somewhat ironic that Onchocerciasis a.k.a River Blindness is a neglected tropical disease simply because there is sad poetry in being blind to the second most common infectious cause of blindness. The disease of river blindness itself occurs when larvae of the parasite Onchocerca volvulus. Beyond this basic pathogenesis, in terms of […]
