I Am Here and Alive
Dr. Ervin Anies explores the struggles and emotional turmoil of medical training, ultimately finding acceptance and self-worth.
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Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Ervin (Erv) is beginning his general intern year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and recently graduated from the Uniformed Services Univerity of the Health Sciences in May 2022. While in medical school, he was the co-director for the on-campus peer-led curriculum aimed to foster conversations about diversity, bias, discrimination, and inclusion in both medicine and the military. His interests include medical education, promoting diversity, and utilizing the arts to augment the healing nature of medicine.
How Literature Transformed an Engineer into a Doctor
Medical student Bassel Salka finds opportunities to improve health care by reading works of humorists, fiction writers, and philosophers.
Medicine on Skids
Rural Health is an important but often overlooked sub-specialty in medicine. This piece gives insight to the intricacies of patient care and transport, rural health policy, and the rich, long-term relationships developed in the lives of current practicing rural health physicians.
Orders, Consults, Notes
Intern Ervin Anies assesses the expectation versus the reality of the responsibilities medical students and residents are expected to manage.
Do Not Strike Out: A Patient’s Story About Accessing Mental Health Care
Third-year medical student Thomas Gagliardi reflects on the socioeconomic barriers to accessing health care, cultural competency and mental health.
Yearning for Yesterday
Shivani Sundaram, a third-year medical student, explores the need for humanity and patience in the face of algorithms and checkboxes.
An Unanticipated Learning Issue
Emma Stenz’s first time witnessing a patient’s death helped her realize the role of a physician in maintaining emotional composure and acting with nonmaleficence towards the patient, both in life and in death.
Love Language
Medical student Saud Rehman writes a poem about understanding other people.
The Short White Coat: A Doorway into Another’s Vulnerability
Medical student Analisa Narro pounders on the power and responsibility she has to patients when she dons on her white coat.
PSA: Tokenism is Not Diversity
In this piece, Afua Ofori-Darko discusses how medical education has focused on tokenism on a way to achieve diversity. Specifically, Afua discusses her journey as the token Black girl and how tokenism harms URiM students and the institutions to which they belong.
Fight for Freedom
Having been born and raised in Iran, Negin Khosravi has experienced horrors that are untold. As ongoing protests happen in Iran and as an aspiring physician leader, Negin hopes to shed some light on what is happening and advocate for people. It is time for racism, discrimination and lack of freedom to end.
Beyond the Clinic
Joseph Conti, a medical student, discusses understanding patients and their families and prioritizing what they value during care delivery.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
New York Medical College
I am a 3rd year medical student hoping to pursue a career in pediatric surgery. In my free time I enjoy lifting weights and journaling. Research experiences includes pediatric cardiology, parasitology, and frailty as related to surgical outcomes.