Medical Student Contributing Writer
Albany Medical College
Medha has a deep-rooted passion for aiding the underserved, especially the migrant and refugee community. As a future physician, she hopes to use her skills to provide equitable healthcare to those in need.
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 Race Track – 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.
Dr. Ervin Anies explores the struggles and emotional turmoil of medical training, ultimately finding acceptance and self-worth.
Medical student Bassel Salka finds opportunities to improve health care by reading works of humorists, fiction writers, and philosophers.
Rural Health is an important but often overlooked sub-specialty in medicine. This piece gives insight to the intricacies of patient care and transport, rural health policy, and the rich, long-term relationships developed in the lives of current practicing rural health physicians.
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 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 Saud Rehman has written a collection of poems focusing on the lockdown of March 2020 with artwork to give a visual representation of how he felt. Often times the manifestations of moods unrelated to coursework go overlooked, especially in medicine, and Saud hopes that these provide a representation of the humanity behind students going through difficult times.
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.
Medical student Denisha McCurchin shares one of her final moments in the hospital with her grandmother who had a stroke. She tells the story through the senses of sight and hearing and reflects on the care she wishes her grandmother received as well as the care she endeavors to deliver as a future doctor.
This essay offers a personal reflection on hospice care and celebration of life from the perspective of a medical student addressing her late grandmother.
Ana Jimenez, a fourth-year medical student, describes her encounter with Micah, a coffee-making, DJ-ing, emergency medicine resident.
Medical student Olivia Dhaliwal reflects on the weight of medical school and her feelings of “hollow”
Medical Student Contributing Writer, Editor
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Olivia is a student at Case Western in Cleveland, OH. Born and raised in Erie, PA (and sort of California, too) she has lived in eight different states since starting college and took a roundabout journey to medicine. She hopes to pursue rural family medicine, with a focus on integrative and preventative medicine. When not studying, she is likely to be found working out at CrossFit, practicing yoga, reading fiction, writing poetry, spending time outside with her rescue pitbull Baylor, or traveling to her next adventure.
