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.
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 Jake Bardell poetically epitomizes the art of medicine: navigating the nuances that lie beyond the logical and algorithmic thinking expected of doctors.
Future doctor Chidera Okafor contextualizes her struggles with depression, anxiety and apparent surreality with the world around her, while deftly shining the spotlight again on the often overlooked and unaddressed aspect of a physician’s world: self mental health.
Medical student Lindsey Nae Wright discusses the unique and life-altering experience of practicing the physical exam on her dying father. Her experience has turned the happy color yellow into something darker.
Medical student Shivani Sundaram underscores the daily struggles and reality faced by those with dementia and memory disorders through a recognizably “normal” conversation.
Medical student Navjot Singh teaches us how to surmount racism with composure, grace, and courage.
Medical student Micaela Mcgregor gives profound advice to other future black doctors who will one day represent only 4% of practicing American physicians.
Medical student Nkiruka Aniagolu explores how understanding someone’s name or title can foster deeper trust with patients and those around us, as our names are ‘pieces of our personal mosaics’ that give glimpses to who we are.
Medical student Allen Betts explores the often underrated effect of psychosocial determinants and the integral part they play in the influencing health and well-being. Read more to find out how he has come to appreciate the soft skills a physician gleans through patient encounters rather than through books.
Alicia Pugh writes a poem that reflects on how our backgrounds impact the way we view our patients.
Jean Anne Adomfeh unravels a common gender bias, contained in diagnosing chest pain, that has existed in medicine for decades and how through a few simple yet profound words of a teacher, combined with experiences along the way, she is inspired to help change the narrative.
Katherine Panushka asks readers to reflect and acknowledge that our patients’ stories extend beyond their final moments in her poem, “The Pause.”
Medical Student Contributing Writer
University of Utah School of Medicine
I am a fourth-year medical student at the University of Utah School of Medicine. I was born in Ogden, UT. A few miles south at Westminster College in SLC, UT I studied English Literature. I entered medical school motivated by tandem interests in personal narratives and medical science. I am inspired to bear witness to the complex, often intimate stories that bring patients into my care. In addition to my expanding interests in medicine, I enjoy spending time with my cat, Alice and my dog, Ishi. I love adventuring outside, playing center midfielder on my indoor soccer team, cooking delicious pescatarian food.
