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Overcoming a Stammer

Orlando M. Martinez November 12, 2024 5 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Teary-eyed and a bit shaken, I hovered outside the room of our next patient, Ms. Robinson. She needed a lumbar puncture, and I was there as a medical student on rotation to observe the inpatient neurology team carry out the procedure.

Moments earlier, out here in the hallway, I’d sputtered through a case presentation to the open displeasure of my attending physician. I hadn’t been sure how my lifelong stammer would influence my experience on the wards; now I found out.

Unasked, Unanswered

Reni Forer October 29, 2024 4 Comments

“Hi! I’m Reni, the medical student here today,” I say to the cargo pant-clad teenager sitting hunched on the exam table. “My pronouns are she/her. What are your name and pronouns?”

My smooth delivery is only somewhat ruined by my almost falling off the stool as I try to sit down hands-free. I look up once I’m less precariously perched, awaiting a reply.

“Oh, I’m Sam,” they shrug. “And any are fine.”

My Blankie

Anna Cmolik October 22, 2024 7 Comments

One evening, at the age of four, I ran frantically into my bedroom, tears burning in my eyes, and started overturning the furniture, peering under my bed and scrabbling through piles of clothes. I bounded back downstairs into the kitchen to check the chair I’d sat in for dinner. Over and over, I asked my four siblings and my parents:

“Have you seen my blankie?”

Finally, I retraced my steps to the piano bench. There sat my blankie, a soft, bright yellow mound. I let out a sigh of relief, safe at last, and headed off to bed.

“Hey, Uce”

Andrew O. September 10, 2024 5 Comments

I’ll never forget my shadowing experience in the emergency department during my first year of medical school.

Scanning that morning’s list of patients, I saw a last name that made me do a double-take. A distinctly Samoan name: Mr. Fuaga.

My father’s side of the family came to the States from Samoa before I was born, and I grew up curious about Polynesian culture. My father always taught me to seek out fellow Pacific Islanders in whatever path I pursued, no matter how few of us there might be.

What’s Left Unsaid

Leighton Schreyer July 23, 2024 9 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Standing with the rest of the medical team outside the hospital room of our first patient of the day, the attending physician nods impatiently at the resident to get started with morning rounds.

“Right, uh,” she fumbles, before finding her footing. “Philippe Dubois. Twelve-year-old boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Here from Québec with his father for annual follow-up. No change in medications….”

As a first-year medical student, I’ve already watched enough medical dramas to know that this is how reports are given—in cold, clipped sentences that reduce people to patients, patients to diseases, diseases to signs and symptoms and stereotypes. Rich life stories lost in translation.

One Person at a Time

Fiona Miller July 9, 2024 2 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

By medical-student standards, I’m old.

While it’s increasingly common for applicants to take one, two or even three gap years between college and medical school (usually to do research or engage in an activity to be featured in their application), taking ten years off, as I did, is unusual. I fondly refer to this hiatus as my “gap decade.”

A Daughter of Vietnamese Refugees

Clara D.T. Nguyen May 7, 2024 4 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I am a daughter of Vietnamese refugees.

I wear my identity so proudly that I often reflexively lead with this when, as a medical student, I’m introduced to colleagues, professors and supervisors. It is my response when asked, “How will you contribute to diversity?”

Hot Water Cures (Almost) Everything

Victoria Qian April 30, 2024 5 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

If, like my parents, you had immigrated across the world to America with only $200 to your name, feeling hesitant to speak whenever you needed something for fear of people doubting your intellect, you might develop a certain degree of wary self-reliance.

My parents have had to fight for everything they’ve achieved here, including voices that would be heeded despite their accents, and equal treatment despite looking different.

A Phony Heterosexual

Samuel Streicher February 2, 2024 9 Comments

In my first year as a premedical student at the University of Rochester, I began working as an EMT (emergency medical technician).

I enjoyed the work, but my interactions with patients were necessarily fast-paced and fleeting. In September of my senior year, I explored a different side of medicine by volunteering at a local hospice house; there, engaging with patients and hearing their stories over time was a critical element of care.

Among the hospice patients, I connected especially to Jackson, a man in his sixties. Jackson’s voice, interests and punk style reminded me of my own grandfather, who had passed away just a year earlier.

Code Switching: Gravel Against Stone

Andrew C. January 2, 2024 9 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

As a medical student, I have a habit of lowering my voice an extra octave when I speak with patients, preceptors or even my own primary-care physician. I like to imagine my voice as gravel grinding against stone, my raspy “whiskey voice” melting away any hint of my queer identity.

In these moments, I’m keenly aware of the way I walk and stand, the firmness of my handshake and the content of the small talk I make. There are no lights, no curtains or stage, but I am nonetheless performing.

No One Left to Save

Rachel Berlin December 15, 2023 11 Comments

“Do you want to call time of death?”

I stared up at my resident Hassan, shocked by his question. My stethoscope was still pressed to the elderly patient’s emaciated chest. Her agonal breaths, those last shallow breaths the body takes before death, had ceased. Only silence filled my ears.

Hassan smiled at me. I knew that he was offering this to me as a reward for all my hard work, but still, I was stunned.

Disposable

Barbara Meyer November 10, 2023 16 Comments

As a third-year medical student, I was two weeks into my trauma-surgery rotation when my resident casually called me “disposable.” I wasn’t offended—in fact, the word perfectly described how I’d been feeling. I also understood that it was no reflection on my performance; rather, it was a commentary on medical students in general.

Surgery was the first rotation of my third year—and, now that the COVID pandemic was winding down, it was also my first in-person clinical rotation.

I’d never been on the floors of the hospital. I felt clueless, underprepared and incompetent.

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: medical student stories

Overcoming a Stammer

Unasked, Unanswered

My Blankie

“Hey, Uce”

What’s Left Unsaid

One Person at a Time

A Daughter of Vietnamese Refugees

Hot Water Cures (Almost) Everything

A Phony Heterosexual

Code Switching: Gravel Against Stone

No One Left to Save

Disposable

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: medical student stories

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