By Anuja Mali “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." – Ralph Waldo Emerson One of the truths about choosing to study Medicine is that, from...
Blog
The journey back to the US for surgical residency
By Gopika SenthilKumar and Jamesa Fabien Dr. Anil Paramesh is a US citizen who was born in Detroit. He grew up there for eight years, after which his family moved back to India. He has numerous famil...
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International Medical Graduates in Surgery: Attending an Offshore Medical School
By Jamesa Fabien My (Jamesa) first-semester class was comprised of students from all walks of life. Some of my classmates were decades older than me, grateful for the opportunity to finally pursue th...
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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 ...
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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. T...
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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...
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Highs and Lows of Surgery: Juice Boxes on my Surgery Rotation
By Hannah Case The first two years of medical school, I found myself fighting with an inexorable desire to be in the operating room. Surgery seemed alluring; addictive almost, yet I fought its appeal...
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A Future Female Surgeon and Daughter of Immigrants
How a future first-generation surgeon carries her parents’ strength and courage By Scarlett Tohme I am a native New Yorker, in one of the truest senses of the label—I am a daughter of immigrants....
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Being a Woman in AWS
By Cheryl Zogg Since joining AWS in my first year of medical school, running my school’s local chapter as an M2, and spending the last three years as a member of the AWS National Medical Student Co...
Blog
Becoming a Woman in Surgery
by Rachel Salinas Becoming a surgeon is an intimidating endeavor. The moment I said it out loud, people would comment on how hard the hours are, how mentally and emotionally exhausting this career...