The past week I’ve been meandering down the interview trail hoping to avoid death by dysentery along the way…ugh…wait…wrong trail. Anyhow, I really have been traveling around Central Texas the past week for residency interviews and along the way the most commonly asked question has been: “Why exactly do you blog?” Most often the question has been posed with genuine interest and good intentions, but it has been occasionally paired with a single raised eyebrow [...]

I recently tweeted asking about favorite patients, physicians, and students on Twitter and was met with a plethora of shocked tweets at my inclusion of patients as potential Twitter interests. Perhaps other medical friends interpreted this as being similar to meeting people in clinic and asking for their Twitter handle (which is not something I do) or maybe people really think it’s wrong to follow patients on Twitter, I don’t know. However, I do know y’all [...]

Coming into medical school I think many of us have an image in our head of all the great things we’ll get to do. In general most of them probably include a collage of things like saving lives, using defibrillators, performing surgery…you know, TV medical drama-esque stuff. In reality, medical students very rarely save anyone’s life and generally the extent of our surgical experience stops at holding bladder blades and retractors. That’s not to say [...]

The past year has been one of unexpected and broad personal discovery, involving aspects of heartbreaking disappointment and sheer, unsurpassable joy. Since July of last year, when I started third year, I’ve met amazing people, learned incredible things (including learning how much I don’t know) and been afforded unique opportunities. I can confidently say that the third year of medical school was one of the most life-changing years of my life. Not only did I [...]

A recent article called “To Tweet, or Not To Tweet: Physicians Misusing the Internet” discussed a new JAMA study which apparently found that… “92 percent of state medical boards in the United States have received reports of [online] violations ranging from inappropriate contact with patients to misrepresentation of credentials.” I guess this is supposed to be shocking, but I was really somewhat underwhelmed with the information (I was actually more shocked it wasn’t 100% – [...]

Rain drops trickle down the double-paned, ovoid window as my eyes jump from plane to plane watching for movement on the runway. The rainy weather in my connecting city has brought me back to the familiarity of muggy, hot Spring days that were so common place in my college years and I’m reminded of the excitement I felt of being in a new place, doing new things. As we taxi the runway for what seems [...]

As Match Day for the Class of 2012 quickly fades into the background and residency applications for my class begin to appear on the (horrendously terrifying, Wizard of Oz tornado-esque) horizon, I find my classmates starting to disappear (or discuss disappearing) from Facebook and other socially-oriented websites. “Are you taking your blog down for application and interview season?” someone innocently asked, “I mean, some program directors just may not appreciate the ‘social media’ involvement as [...]

I used to resist referring to myself as a “blogger,” it just seemeds like such a large shoe to fill with people out there who write so much more graciously (and humorously) than I…and often about more important things. I guess after this much time I can start to embrace being called a blogger, even though I still feel a bit like a fraud saying that. Occasionally, people will ask me how to start a blog or [...]

“Why Medicine?” - the second most common question I’m asked as a medical student (after “What kind of doctor do you want to be?”). Not an easy question to answer, really – but a valid one and one I often ask to my interviewees during their medical school interviews. I think some people expect a profound, life-changing story about the ER physician who brought me back from the brink or an inspiring timeline of how I’ve wanted to [...]

I wish there was a way for me to tell this PostSecret author just how much her grandmother’s donation will be respected…a way to express to her just how much people like her grandmother have taught me…have taught all of us. Rest assured that we recognize the sacredness of the anatomy lab…it’s palpable in those rooms. I recall long talks about the people willing to let us learn from them, thoughts of what their life [...]