Home
/
medical student stories
/
Page 2

Tag: medical student stories

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.

Black in Medicine

Jade Overton February 6, 2024 9 Comments

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

I was a third-year medical student, anxiously waiting for our morning conference to begin and quickly reviewing the questions that might be asked.

I had stepped into the conference room full of residents a few minutes prior, timidly asking if this was the correct location. An attending physician I’d met only once confirmed that I was in the right place and directed me to the front row of seats. As I sat down, I realized that I was the only medical student present. Fighting the urge to bolt from the room, I pulled out my mini notebook.

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 11 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.

Too Everything to Fit In

Zainab Jimoh November 7, 2023 4 Comments

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

“Our next one is a new patient who’s here to establish care,” said my family-medicine preceptor, perusing the patient’s chart.

Great, I thought. Seems like this visit will be pretty simple.

My preceptor entered the exam room, and I nonchalantly followed. Then I locked eyes with the patient—a short, middle-aged woman with bronzed skin and a teal-colored headwrap: a hijab.

Fear of Flesh

Olivia Schreiber November 3, 2023 4 Comments

Sometimes I wish that skin and bones didn’t exist. Of course, that would be impossible—the skeleton is the scaffold for our bodies, while the skin is the insulation for vital organs such as the heart, kidneys and bowels. Without our skin and bones, we’d be mere piles of goo on the floor.

Bones are too complicated, for the simple reason that there are too many. As a first-year medical student studying anatomy, I agonized over learning the grooves and prominences where the muscles originate and insert into the bones. I always struggled to find these so-called bony landmarks on our simulated patients.

And flesh…the skin is even more horrifying than the bones beneath it.

My Superpower

Elizabeth Foley October 31, 2023 6 Comments

When I was six years old, my parents and I learned that I have type 1 diabetes.

As I grew up, revealing my diagnosis felt awkward and burdensome. Whenever I was in a public place and checked my blood sugar by pricking my finger, I often had to explain my illness to others, which led to unwelcome questions. To avoid this, I developed a habit of mentioning my disease swiftly, as if pulling off a Band-Aid.

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

Tag: medical student stories

What’s Left Unsaid

One Person at a Time

A Daughter of Vietnamese Refugees

Hot Water Cures (Almost) Everything

Black in Medicine

A Phony Heterosexual

Code Switching: Gravel Against Stone

No One Left to Save

Disposable

Too Everything to Fit In

Fear of Flesh

My Superpower

Subscribe to Pulse.

It's free.

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

Tag: medical student stories

Start typing and press enter to search

Subscribe to Pulse.

It's free.