medical students
The Size of my Scrubs
By Alyssa Brown Blue, white, red, yellow, pink, and brown. These are the colors of the ties and the strip of fabric around the scrub pants and scrub tops. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but it always felt like a Scarlet Letter to me. The colors indicate the size of the scrubs. My friends always complained about not being able to find smalls and mediums, and I would shrink back a little more. At the start of medical school, I would squeeze into the red top and red pants. These were the larges. It was so easy to see who was smaller or larger than you because of this. I felt uncomfortable because I knew how many other people were smaller than me. I was worried they were judging this too. I had spent years growing up uncomfortable. The southern term for it is being big boned, and everyone in my...
A thank you letter to the surgeon who believed in me
by Sarah Adkins-Jablonsky Dr. P,I learned how a gallbladder is removed before I learned to drive. To think I had these opportunities because of you, while my mom rationed food stamps, is a privilege I still can't quite fathom. Shadowing you at 15 changed the trajectory of my life. Not that I couldn’t be what I wanted to be, but I didn’t know what I could be. I wasn’t sure what a university was or what medical school was, but 10 years later I am finally here in my first year of medical school, on a full ride scholarship, destined to be a doctor not like you, but a doctor like me.Because I saw myself in you, you believed in me, and that belief feels more powerful than any surgical tool. From recommendation letters, to taking my frustrated calls about getting Cs in organic chemistry, to snail mail about the...
Chasing “More”: The Cost of Applying to a Competitive Surgical Specialty
By Kelly Spiller During a posterior cranial vault expansion on my pediatric plastics rotation, I was assigned a simple task: to stand at the back table and obtain bone shavings from the skull flap. Taking care not to fracture areas of thin bone, I went to work with the scraper, slowly filling the cup beside me with bone shavings. Holding the cup up to my attending, I asked him after a few minutes, “How does this look?” Quickly glancing up from the surgical field, he responded, “More.” Ten minutes and a few hundred scrapes later, I filled another cup to the brim. “How about now?”, I inquired. Peering over his loupes, he laughed and responded, “Kelly, I’m a surgeon. We always want more.” Reflecting on his response that day, I recognized the greater truth in his sentiment. Throughout my medical school journey, I have constantly chased “more” with one goal...
Diversity in Strengths and Strength in Diversity
By Marianna Hernandez Brandi When my mom and I moved to Cincinnati, OH in 2005, I was placed in an English as a Second Language (ESL) class. I remember when the teacher would come into my home room and call out for me in front of all my classmates to announce that it was time for our one-on-one session. I was always so annoyed. I did not have much of a background, if any, in speaking English, but I felt that being singled out daily inhibited me from being able to fully immerse myself in the classroom with the other students. It took me less than a month to complain enough to my mom about this situation for her to advocate for me to no longer attend ESL classes. Throughout my life, I never felt that I was particularly gifted at test taking or school. In elementary school and high...
How summer schools can fill the gap in Global Surgery knowledge of medical students and surgeons
By Gabriela Azevedo Sansoni Global Surgery is a hot topic, but is it often part of formal curricula for medical students and surgical trainees? A lot of papers have been published calling attention to gaps in education about Global Surgery, and more generally, Global Health, in medical education. In theory it would be possible to squeeze in another mandatory course and add a few more hours of lectures and seminars for the already busy students and residents. But would it be efficient? I, of course, don't have this answer. I do think, however, that Global Surgery is an important yet not-often-mentioned topic, particularly compared with other surgical specialities. Global Surgery education should guide and capacitate surgeons (and nurses, anesthesiologists, OR assistants, etc) to work in different settings with varying levels of resources. I am privileged, in a certain way, for having personal and educational experiences in low and high resource...
Coming Home
By Alyssa Brown I left Louisville 2 years and 51 weeks ago- now I am back. When I moved to Minnesota to get my PhD, I knew that I would come back. It was always a temporary goodbye to the hospital. Graduate school was difficult in its own ways. I loved my years spent in research, but I missed the operating room and patients. I snuck back into the operating room many times over those three years; I couldn’t help myself. Now, I am back, back for my fourth year of medical school. Two days after unloading my car and moving truck, I started a month-long acting internship in the Trauma ICU. It was my acting internship in general surgery and I barely slept the night before. I packed my tote bag with all the essentials, found my white coat, and headed in at 4:30 am. The roads were empty...
Taming the Shrew Called Anxiety
By Jamesa Fabien A million thoughts raced through my mind: “Need to do well on Step” “Need to publish” “Need to network” “Need to be EXTRAORDINARY!!!” I struggled to focus on the text before me, but the concert of thoughts dancing in my mind won the competition. I crumbled in defeat, unable to do what needed to be done in the moment. This was the story of my first few semesters at medical school. I knew that I wanted to be a surgeon and that it would be a challenge. However, instead of being able to rise to the challenge, I was repeatedly crushed by anxiety and fear of failure and these posed an even greater challenge. I sought desperately to find solutions. First, I tried meditation in my quest to get my life back on track. My first attempt actually raised my anxiety; I could not turn off my...
Practicing medicine and surgery in different languages
By Gabriela Azevedo Sansoni One of the keys to a good healthcare professional and patient rapport is communication. This may seem obvious because it is very generic and can be applied to all human relationships, however, it is often overlooked or forgotten until a certain challenge or barrier makes you face this obvious truth. I have learned this lesson early in my medical education. I moved from Brazil to Italy to study in a six-year programme fully taught in English (mind you, by Italian professors). Since we train in Italian hospitals, we naturally need to become fluent in the local language by the end of the second year. Thankfully, I passed my Italian language exam by the end of the first year and achieved this requirement early on. To make things more interesting, however, I moved to the Netherlands in my third year for a research project, and extended my...
Avoiding Bias in Letter Writing
By Dr. Chantal Reyna It has been shown that implicit bias exists within letters of recommendation written for medical students applying for residency. In regard to gender, female applicants were more often described using grindstone phrases such as “hardworking,” and their letters were more likely to include descriptions of their personal life and physical appearance. Meanwhile, males were more often described using standout adjectives such as “accomplished.” Their letters also included more references to research activities. These biases extend to underrepresented minority (URM) applicants as well. Black applicants were more often described as “competent” compared to white applicants who were more commonly described by “standout” phrases, even after controlling for USMLE scores. Rojek et. al showed that word differences between non-URM and URM applicants’ letters had more competency based adjectives in non-URM letters while more personal attributes were used in URM letters. While these findings have been documented in residency...
A Practical Guide to Establishing Mentors as a Virtual Medical Student
By Shan S. Lansing 2020 was the year for virtual medical education. Preclinical students would jest that they were attending Zoom School of Medicine, and whole cohorts of new medical students were inducted with virtual white coat ceremonies. Though video platforms made it possible for clubs and interest group meetings to continue, the free pizza and casual networking was replaced with gentle encouragement to go ahead and turn your camera on, if you’re comfortable. Beginning a career in medicine is daunting, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has only served to add new challenges to the already formidable tasks involved with beginning medical school, developing a support network, and creating meaningful relationships with mentors. I have heard from many preclinical medical students that the transition to virtual events has made it challenging to network and connect with surgeons. With that in mind, here are a few practical tips for establishing relationships...
