"I can't wait to start taking care of patients," said Alison Almgren-Bell, who matched in internal medicine at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. "They really have been my north star through all of medical training."
He told me about a man, who I'll call B, who had completed nearly all the requirements for a radiology specialization at the University of Montreal. This man was the best student in his class. He had spent fifteen years training. He could read twice as many radiological scans as a non-autistic colleague. He was also a professional-level guitarist. Mottron called him "the Glenn Gould of radiology," Glenn Gould being a brilliant, classical pianist.
India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course. The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi, a mountainous district overlooking the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas,
Every evening around 8pm, Faisal Khan locks himself inside his small hostel room at East West Medical College in Nishat Nagar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. If there is a knock on the door, he pauses before opening it, listening carefully first for familiar voices. Outside the campus, he avoids crowded tea stalls and markets. He does not speak Bangla fluently, and he knows that his accent could give him away as an Indian an identity he desperately wants to mask these days,
Two senior physicians who had read our first book, Rethinking Health Care Ethics (2018), noted that in their clinical work, they inescapably address many ethical problems, large and small, on the spot, in the course of providing patient care. They also observed, however, that the resident bioethicist cautioned, when presented with one of their typical problems, that it would take him days or even weeks to reach a proper solution.
Founder of the Migration Story, India Shubham Sabar, 19, was working at a construction site in Bengaluru, capital of India's southern Karnataka state, when he received a phone call from his teacher back home, hundreds of miles away in Odisha state, telling him he had passed the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet) India's tough admissions examination for undergraduate medical and dental colleges.
When Dr Kudzai Kanyepi qualified as Zimbabwe's first female cardiothoracic surgeon four years ago, she was filled with pride and anticipation after succeeding in an area long dominated by men. She was only the 12th woman in Africa to qualify in the field four more have joined her since. Even now, with 100 operations under her belt, the reality of working in a role in which she confronts misogyny and discrimination daily has not dented Kanyepi's love of the surgical theatre.
"Research has become an increasingly more important component of medical training, both as an avenue for career development and to showcase ground-breaking insights," said Kelly Bachta, MD, PhD, associate director of Feinberg student research, director of AOSC and assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases.
As medical students in Gaza, we are taught how to save lives with nothing and how to make impossible decisions. It was my childhood dream to study medicine. I wanted to be a doctor to help people. I never imagined that I would study medicine not in a university, but in a hospital; not from textbooks, but from raw experience.
With so many people seeking further education as they get edged out of the job market by AI, Tarifi offered a different perspective: that nobody "should ever do a PhD unless they are obsessed with the field." The AI veteran also told BI that he'd advise caution to anyone looking to get into the fields of medicine and law, which take years - and often hundreds of thousands of dollars - to complete a degree.
"None of them! The man on the phone, who I was on the phone 911 with, he was like, 'What's your emergency?' And I was like, 'My roommate got a copper IUD inserted and he goes IUD?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, like, you know, like the birth control?' This man is just like, 'Okay, sounds like you're having a medical emergency. I'll transfer you over to the paramedics.'"
"AI itself is going to be gone by the time you finish a Ph.D. Even things like applying AI to robotics will be solved by then. So either get into something niche like AI for biology, which is still in its very early stages, or just don't get into anything at all," Tarifi said.
Many newly qualified doctors are taking part-time jobs to cope with debts, often driving Ubers or working in bars to supplement their income. This cycle of financial strain is particularly affecting students from lower-income backgrounds, highlighting a significant funding gap in medical education.
Carter Salazar shared her experience of feeling uncomfortable due to hot flashes in professional settings, worrying about how this affected her perceived competence among coworkers and students.
Medical school has been filled with late nights in the library, reading up on new literature and guidelines and diverse encounters with a wide variety of patients. But most importantly, the last four years have solidified my place in the medical field, alongside the lifelong friends I have made and the incredible attendings, residents, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, and dietitians I have had the pleasure of working with.
