Now that I’ve shown you some of the disturbingly mundane, easily forgotten, embarrassingly unfiltered, suspiciously fragmented, difficult-to-summarize minutiae of my first year at Penn Med, I’m tempted to add my editorial thoughts to the above — but I won’t. What is far more important is your interpretation of the excerpts as you live out your own MS1 year.
You all will have exposure to incredible faculty at Perelman and in the Penn Medicine system as a whole. They will be there to offer world-class mentorship. The sheer diversity of interests and responsibilities will hopefully give you some insight into what you want to pursue in the future. However, emulating these individuals from afar can only accomplish so much. It is only when we take a genuine, in-depth interest in the mindset, systems, and values of our mentors that we can hope to emulate them in the future.
The banning of tear gas in international warfare as an acknowledgment of its dangerous nature is a farce: most warfare occurs domestically, between civilians and the government forces who once swore to protect and defend those civilians.
I am neither Black nor white. I feel awkward and almost out of place commenting on a history in which my relatives did not participate. In my household, I can trace the trauma of the Cultural Revolution on the opposite side of the world more than I can the...
As the pandemic shatters community support systems, Philadelphia’s marginalized children are more vulnerable than ever before. What new challenges will they face when we begin the return to “normal” life?
This essay is a perspective piece about my experience in medical school as a Black student. Originally an assignment for class, it became my way of processing the genocide and racism of Black people in the United States. It is a call to action for medical schools, students, and doctors to take a stance against anti-Black racism. As Audre Lorde said, “Your silence will not protect you.”
The road to gender equality has been decades in the making. Though progress has been gradual: with women currently comprising ~36% of the physician workforce and ~50% of medical school enrollees, irrefutable challenges still remain. Several physician leaders at Penn Med reflect on their experiences as women in medicine.
No medical or public health decision is socially neutral. Every drug, surgery, and behavioral therapy that we provide is as much a medical intervention as a social, economic, and political one.
The offseason in coastal Rhode Island is usually quiet. The breeze whipping off the Atlantic that draws the city folk during the oppressive heat of summer is exactly what keeps them away during the winter months. The ubiquitous clam shacks, surf shops, and ice cream parlors shutter their doors....
When Trump banned travel from Europe to the US, many Americans abroad were awoken in the middle of the night by concerned messages and calls. Instead, I was alerted by practical joke. My partner, who had woken up first and read the news, came in and sat on the...
I decided that today was a beautiful day for a run. As I stepped out of my building, I looked up at the overcast sky, clouds gathering. Perfect, I thought. The Schuylkill will be deserted. I put in my headphones and began jogging to the beat of a random,...
Last Thursday morning, I decided to go for a jog. I'd done enough COVID-19 doomsday scrolling for the day. There are only so many times you can see the disease projection numbers before it really starts to get to you.
It had been a while since I had last run....
As I gather the unchanged history and unchanged exam and answer his questions about the plan for the day, I prepare to head for the safety of the door. Then the patient asks me the question I’ve been dreading the whole morning: 'When will I get better?'
A petal gently nudges my face as I sit in a hammock threaded of blue, yellow, red, and green. As I stretch out in the shade of a juniper tree, I can smell the faintest hint of pink cherry blossoms from a tree in our neighbor’s yard. A breeze...
“There were trucks out back filled with frozen bodies that couldn’t fit in the morgue.” Mama takes a bite as if she’s just updating us about the never-ending construction on Route 1.
My family eats dinner together regularly now because of quarantine. My sister’s nursing school and my medical school...
Last Thursday, some combination of unseasonably warm weather and quarantine snacking finally propelled me off the couch and onto the Schuylkill River Trail. When I ventured outside, however, I quickly realized that I was not alone in my desire to stave off boredom and quarantine pounds with a socially...
My sister’s life has certainly had challenges - most lives do. Yet, it has also been beautiful and complex and full in a way that no prenatal test can predict.
I brought my dog to church on Sunday.
Well, we’re bringing church to our living room and our dog is asleep on the couch, so he’s coming to church too.
This is the first time any of us have missed Mass since nobody knows when. We’ve never done this before, and...
It is 6:50 AM Central Time. The basement blinds are open, but the bleak Minnesota sky has no light to impart. I have been in self-quarantine in my parents’ house for eight days. In eleven minutes, I will be one minute late to a BlueJeans conference call with five...
I stood in the beer aisle at the supermarket mulling over the choices. I was getting back together with my college friends for a virtual happy hour later that evening. The recent circumstances had forced us to get creative with distant socializing. I opened the fridge door to grab...
It’s an odd world we’ve entered and to keep pretend busy, I’ve started running to use up time. As the old medical mantra goes, time is brain, and TV time is destroying mine.
I lace up my shoes one afternoon while contemplating the meaning of it all. I was thinking...
Ten hours into my journey back to Philadelphia, I catch a foul smell ventilating back to me, lighting a fire up my olfactory bulbs. It is akin to a rotting cabbage. No. A bucket of dirty socks soaking in rainwater. A rotting cabbage in a bucket of dirty socks...