Education

Amaka was a timid-looking girl, tall in stature with a head of braided hair, like myself. She was unassuming and composed at first glance and, if my hypothesis was correct, she could not have been older than me. We were similar, both being of Igbo heritage, but also different—Amaka was pregnant. Admittedly, at 14, I…

On February 12, 2020, the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) announced that, “the USMLE program will change score reporting for Step 1 from a three-digit numeric score to reporting only a pass/fail outcome” as early as January 1, 2022. This change will have a major impact on medical education. USMLE has not announced a…

“You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” As a black woman, this sentiment has haunted me for my entire life. Minority individuals are consistently forced to go above and beyond to prove themselves, regardless of the setting. Unfortunately, medical education is no different. Black and Hispanic students, often referred to…

I remember clearly the first lecture in which I began to feel the painful knot of despair clenched in my chest. We were being taught about piebaldism, a disease that impacts the pigment-producing cells of the body. It was not the description of the condition that alarmed me, but rather the picture that was chosen…

When people ask me what A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is about, I have trouble describing it beyond the story of a young man named Jude with a horrific past and his relationships with the people he meets in college. The heart of the story lies not in the plot but in the connections…

The evolving COVID-19 outbreak has generated concern for students across a variety of disciplines.  While some might believe the healthcare sector is protected in the setting of a pandemic, rising medical graduates are realizing they, too, are not immune from uncertainty.  Third- and fourth-year medical students, in particular, are experiencing unprecedented changes to the traditional…

This pandemic has taught us that undergraduate medical education is nimbler and more adaptive than we have previously assumed it to be. COVID-19 has propelled medical schools into an online, remote learning age. It has beseeched educators to creatively deliver new means of teaching human anatomy, pathophysiology, and clinical skills. It has driven administrators around…

Medical students across the country, such as myself, are struggling to come to terms with the pandemic. The most affected of this group is the current fourth years, trying to embark on their journey of picking a specialty and finding a residency position. As we are considered “non-essential,” we must deal with the consequences of…

When a coalition of medical organizations, led by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), petitioned in 2001 to cap medical resident work hours, they were turned down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Despite their rejection, students and young doctors were determined. They knew that exhausted residents had poorer health and made more…