I’ve been proud of myself this year for taking the time to do seasonally appropriate activities as often as possible. Some years, I’m less careful, and I regret missing out on the best each season has to offer. This summer, my boyfriend and I went berry picking and got pints of the biggest blackberries I’ve […]
Don’t be a shark.
I am sure that if you haven’t already, you will soon encounter one student during your wards, who will be defined as a “shark”. Shark, meaning someone who will jump on every good opportunity to scrub in on a surgery, take on as many patients as possible, and do anything to put him/herself on the […]
My Formal Name
I have a really difficult last name. Some of you might be the same way. Moghavem. It’s got an exotic consonant, a sound that doesn’t even exist in the English language (where ‘gh’ is the placeholder), and several ways to pronounce the whole thing — depending on how the English speaker decides to break it […]
Stressed About Stress
Stress is all around in medical school. Everywhere you look there is something to stress about. You can stress about picking a specialty, your next exam, your early morning lecture, your weekly assignment, your loans, your fading youth, your lack of social life or even stress about how you aren’t stressing as much as your […]
To Sleep or Not To Sleep
There is a huge party going on outside. It’s actually not that close but I can still hear the music blasting. It’s the much anticipated concert for the new school year. The Israeli students start school in October because of all the Jewish holidays. This quite, dull and dusty city suddenly transforms itself with the […]
Surgery, surgery, surgery.
During my surgical clerkship, I have come to understand that surgery is a task of endurance. I had a few cases where surgeries lasted more than 6 hours, and while being scrubbed in, it is not easy to use the restroom, have a sip of water, or have a small snack. If you do have […]
The Cancer Patient
He was sitting in a coffee shop. He had driven there from the hospital. He had cancer. That is what he had been told, stage 1 testicular cancer. He had reacted very calmly to the news, so much so that the doctor had asked if he knew what cancer was and whether he understood fully […]
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” – Mother Teresa
6,392 miles. That is the distance that separates me from my parents. Add a couple more and that covers the length between my brother and me. My parents are living in Malaysia and my brother is studying in Korea. There are times when all four of us are in different countries. 2002. That was the […]
Special Delivery
These past two weeks have been “Women’s Health Weeks.” We have been learning about illnesses that affect mostly women. Along with illness, we were taught some physiology pertaining to females only. The most exciting thing we talked about was delivering a baby, something only a woman can do. It is easy to get bogged down […]
The Long White Coat
Stanford does a funny thing. Most medical schools ascribe to an old tradition: medical students get white coats up to their waists, residents to their thighs, and attendings to their knees. It’s a quick way to maintain a hierarchy of experience and knowledge and a shorthand for who in the room bears the most responsibility. […]
