This category contains reflections on student clinical experience.
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.
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 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.
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.
Max Hawkins, a second-year resident, reflects on his medical education journey, the process of consent and the importance of trusting that “gut feeling.”
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.
Tim Niyogusaba, a third-year medical student, meditates on his fulfilling yet fatiguing experiences during clinical rotations.
Dr. Erin Saner reflects on the importance of underrepresented minorities and representation in clinical care and education.
Medical student Tom McNally reflects on the patient-provider relationship based on his experience managing his own chronic illness.
Ana Jimenez, a fourth-year medical student, describes her encounter with Micah, a coffee-making, DJ-ing, emergency medicine resident.
“Code blue!” They teach it as an algorithm and a protocol. But what you are not taught are the emotions attached to a code. I had just finished a cholecystectomy case on my surgery rotation and was walking by the medical intensive care unit when I heard “rapid response team, coronary care unit (CCU).” Since the CCU was not far and I am interested in emergency and critical care medicine, I decided to go to …
Medical student Ana Jimenez reflects on her experience during her surgery rotation.
Medical student Kayla Schmittau reflects on her experience with a patient with substance use disorder and the importance of patient advocacy.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
Rush Medical College
Kayla Schmittau is a third-year medical student at Rush Medical College in Chicago and is interested in pursuing a career in pediatric oncology! She is from Staten Island, NY and received her Bachelor's degree at Georgetown University. In her free time, she loves consuming and producing art and uses writing as a method by which she processes the various experiences of life and medicine.
