One of my main philosophies as a healthcare provider was to empower my patients and form a relationship where we both make decisions as a team. Many times as a patient myself, I felt as though I didn’t have all the information to make an informed decision regarding my own health. I felt lost and […]
Taking Time for Yourself
Let’s talk about a topic that I feel is sometimes hard to talk about especially in the field of medicine where one may feel a lot of pressure. It’s hard to say you need time or a vacation when everyone else around you seem to be able to do it all, but let me tell […]
The Letter of Interest for Residency Interviews
It is the middle of the interview season, and you haven’t heard from a number of programs you applied to. With the pandemic shifting the normal schedule of interviews, it is unclear to you whether programs are delaying sending out invites, or if you missed the cut. Either way, you know you have to resort […]
Pros and Cons of Virtual Interview Season
Initially, I imagined this virtual residency interview season would be a struggle in terms of getting a good feel for a residency program. While I do believe it is more difficult to grasp the culture of the program over webcam and miss the opportunity to visit each hospital in person, I am impressed with how […]
Book Review – The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly details the author’s journey from intern year of residency to becoming a second-year resident in the end. As one who is about to graduate medical school and enter internship next summer, this was a nice illustration of some of the dilemmas and emotions I certainly will encounter as […]
What is Urgent Care?
I just completed my four-week outpatient sub-internship in urgent care, and I must admit that prior to this rotation, I did not know exactly what purpose urgent care served. Over the past four weeks through many provider complaints about what was unnecessarily getting triaged to them, I have learned what urgent care is and what […]
Finalizing Specialty Selection During my Clinical Years
Having just officially entered the residency application cycle at the time this piece is being written I thought I would reflect on my decision-making process during my clinical years of medical school. I feel I adopted a somewhat backward approach in selecting the field into which I am now applying. Rather than thinking about what […]
You Can’t Have it Both AOA’s
As my colleagues and I entered the residency application cycle my medical school announced it would be joining a number of other prominent institutions in suspending the election of medical students to AOA the medical school honors society. I cannot fault this decision as it was taken based on the consensus opinion of the medical […]
Medicine in Media: Manhua vs Manga
In previous writing published elsewhere, I have considered how medicine is portrayed in Japanese manga. In many of those works medicine as an institution is presented as the problem and the heroes of the works are often brilliant renegades who force spotlights onto corruption and professional inertia. In this piece, I wished to contrast that […]
Christmas Wish List: Residency Edition
Now that I’ve gotten medical school under my belt, I have moved onto the next step—residency, specifically intern year. You can say my wish list has changed a bit. It’s still the most wonderful time of year, and with that comes yummier food, holiday music, and much needed time with family to make priceless memories. […]
