How to Declare Someone Dead: A Brief Reflection
Shannon Fang, medical student, comments on the necessity of processing emotionally stressful encounters in medicine.
Words from the Wards
This category contains reflections on student clinical experience.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Shannon Fang is a third-year medical student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and received her undergraduate degree from Duke University. Shannon is interested in pursuing a career in medical education, health humanities, and healthcare advocacy. Outside the hospital, she enjoys playing with her cats, crocheting, and watching college basketball.Shannon Fang is a third-year medical student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and received her undergraduate degree from Duke University. Shannon is interested in pursuing a career in medical education, health humanities, and healthcare advocacy. Outside the hospital, she enjoys playing with her cats, crocheting, and watching college basketball.
Celeste’s Bliss
Medical student Medha Palnati describes barriers to care, and highlights the need for greater awareness and sensitivity in patient care.
Misery: A Small Collection of Patients’ Stories
Dr. Marissa Mayfield uses a trio of poems to teleport readers into the reality of medical crises and highlight the need for empathy in healthcare.
76-Year-Old with a Neck Mass
This piece is a reflection of the first few months of Sriya’s clinical years experience. There are a thousand different stories all happening at the same time in the same hospital, and each of them has plenty to learn from and cherish. This piece is a reflection on the privilege that we get as learners and future providers to learn about and from others’ stories.
See One, Do One, Teach One, Have One
Dr. Michael Callegari assesses the teaching mantra in medicine, and the centrality of empathy in patient care.
Family Practice and Hidden Moments
Dr. Verjee recounts a poignant narrative of his and his medical student’s journey with a longtime patient, Margery, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, ultimately revealing the profound impact of family medicine on both patients and healthcare professionals.
Triple Crown
Medha Palnati describes an encounter she had with a patient who she met at the Backstretch Clinic, a clinic that serves the undocumented workers that care for the horses at the racetrack, as he was having a myocardial infarction. This encounter highlights the conversation Medha had with this patient while waiting for the ambulance to transport him to the hospital, and the solace that they found in each other in that moment.
One Question More
Medical student Varesh Gorabi is reminded of the importance of empathy during a seemingly routine clinic visit.
Orders, Consults, Notes
Intern Ervin Anies assesses the expectation versus the reality of the responsibilities medical students and residents are expected to manage.
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.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
David Geffen SOM at UCLA
Nicole is a fourth-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering. She is applying to psychiatry with the intention of pursuing a child and adolescent fellowship. In her free time, she enjoys playing tricks on her cat.
