Orders, Consults, Notes
Intern Ervin Anies assesses the expectation versus the reality of the responsibilities medical students and residents are expected to manage.
Words from the Wards
This category contains reflections on student clinical experience.
Resident 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.
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.
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.
The Ward as Medicine
The Ward as Medicine is about how one’s fellow patients on the psychiatry ward can act as mirrors, teachers and inspirations to a patient. Specifically, it is about a mom who, hospitalized for suicidality stemming from her guilt and anger over how she has mothered her children, gets reconnected with the identity of motherhood while interacting with others on the unit.
An Understanding
Medical student MacKenzie Adams reflects on her experience with a patient who received news that he was dying via an interpreter. She addresses the importance of improving care for non-English speakers.
Learning Confidence
Dr. Max Hawkins reflects on the expectation of medical students on the wards and the racial bias implicit in the operations tested on certain patients.
Feeling
Max Hawkins, a second-year resident, reflects on his medical education journey, the process of consent and the importance of trusting that “gut feeling.”
The Year of COVID-19 in a Body Bag
An ICU nurse turned medical student reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic’s severe and lasting impact on health care workers and the acute shift to the new normal of expectations in the inpatient setting.
Sacred in the Everyday
Tim Niyogusaba, a third-year medical student, meditates on his fulfilling yet fatiguing experiences during clinical rotations.
I am the Face of Medicine—Representation of Color: A Narrative Reflection
Dr. Erin Saner reflects on the importance of underrepresented minorities and representation in clinical care and education.
From Provider to Patient: My Journey as a Medical Student with a Chronic Health Condition
Medical student Tom McNally reflects on the patient-provider relationship based on his experience managing his own chronic illness.
With Words, A Playlist: Finding a Way Back
Ana Jimenez, a fourth-year medical student, describes her encounter with Micah, a coffee-making, DJ-ing, emergency medicine resident.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
City University of New York School of Medicine
Ana is an MS4 at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Medicine. Her other interests include art, nature, and wildlife.
