First Times in Medicine as an Asian American
Medical student Alyssa Guo shares excerpts of her diary with reflections of her first times in medicine as an Asian American.
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Editor-in-Chief
University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville
Hello! I’m Alyssa Guo, and I’m a PGY2 internal medicine resident at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital. I received my bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Neuroscience from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and my medical degree from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine at Greenville.
I’m excited to be part of Mosaic in Medicine to share voices that are often missed in medicine. I hope that our joint efforts in shining a light on difficult topics spark conversations that will change medicine for the better. It is also my hope that MiM encourages more reflective practice and encourage more narrative medicine publications, so that we can capture moments of history and their impacts on the healthcare profession. We are working towards building MiM to serve as a beacon of light in promoting health equity, allowing for those who come after us to understand the events that shaped us through reading our publications.
Feel free to get in touch with me at aaguo@wakehealth.edu if you have any questions about MiM!
Volcanoes and Illegal Immigration: One Guatemalan’s Perilous Journey
Medical student Leonard Wang presents his views on patient advocacy by exploring the role of patient stories, in particular an anecdote from a recent trip to Guatemala during his winter break.
Mrs. D’s Breathing
Medical student Micky Akinrodoye reflects on the importance of advocating for patients by taking into consideration of a myriad of factors influencing their care.
Prayer in Practice
Medical student Jackson Dean challenges readers to think critically about the variety of forms that prayers come in and the roles they pray at work and in our every day lives.
Dark Sea
Medical student Lindsey Wright explores the stark contrast of love and grief after the loss of her father to cancer and finds solace in poetry and painting.
Hidden Impact: Parental Health Status and the Cost for Children
Medical student Katelyn Girtain writes about her experiences as a child of a disabled mother that contributed to the lack of proper insurance and ultimately the occurrence of preventable health issues. She also explores relevant policies and the lack of literature on the impacts of parental disability/lack of insurance on children.
Mountaintop Medicine
Four years ago, as I clung to my seat on a bus teetering back and forth on a one lane rocky road up the Jamaican hillside, I thought I knew what it meant to be a part of the medical community. I grew up in a family of doctors and nurses and, while none pressured me into the field, I felt drawn to it.
A Journey to Obstetrics & Gynecology Through Structural Racism in Maternal Outcomes
Medical student Sara Phillips writes a personal reflection, grounded in scholarly literature, that details her exploration of racism as a mechanism for perpetuating disparities in maternal health outcomes. The piece traces discriminatory policies and actions undertaken by physicians and leaders in the field of obstetrics and gynecology to portray a historical origin for contemporary health inequities. Interacting with these grim stories and statistics, she reflects on what it means for her to seek out a career in OB/GYN to confront this prejudicial history and create a more just path forward.
The Hidden Tools in Medicine
Medical student Lekha Reddy discovers the “hidden tools” that physicians use beyond the scope of lab tests, drugs and consults. She marvels at the power of a new hidden tool — reassurance — during a pediatric emergency room visit.
The Ring On My Hand
This creative piece explores the internal dialogue that a gay patient has with himself when his provider fails to use inclusive language and offers a question that probes disclosure.
Resiliency in Medicine: The Patient Experience
Medical student Micky Akinrodoye reflects on his experiences of being a part of the care team for a complicated patient. With the understanding that every patient has a unique story and life experiences, Micky shares his outlook on the type of physician he would like to become in the future.
You Good?
Read more to find out how three seemingly straightforward words, for medical student Charna Kinard, represented a spectrum of emotions, feelings and connotations in the setting of national news regarding policing and the Black Lives Matter movement and how this has shaped her path towards physicianship.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine
Charna Kinard is a first-year medical student at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine in Fort Worth. Originally from the South Side of Chicago, Kinard attended Whitney Young Magnet High School and Loyola University Chicago, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with a Biology and Dance double minor. She also completed the MEDPREP post-baccalaureate program at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.
Currently, Kinard is President of the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine Student National Medical Association (SNMA) and Physician Outreach Coordinator for the Oncology Interest Group at the School of Medicine. She is pursuing research that applies the nanomaterial graphene for cancer drug delivery. Kinard is cognizant of the health disparities that people of color experience and hopes to address these issues as a physician. She would like to serve lower socioeconomic communities of color to increase medical literacy and preventative practices.