Insights on Residency Training

May 10th, 2022

“Look at Me …”: The Problem with Clinical Documentation

Khalid A. Shalaby, MBBCh

It was a couple of months into my second year of internal medicine residency. One of my patients canceled a 4 pm appointment. The spot was immediately filled with an urgent visit by another patient in our clinic. I had been working on improving my efficiency in the clinical setting since the start of my […]

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May 17th, 2021

“Feel the Musicality”: How Do Surgeons Learn?

Vivek Sant, MD

My friends and I spent Thanksgiving 2018 attending surf school in Jacó, Costa Rica. We spent that week fully immersed in twice-daily surf sessions interspersed with conditioning, balance exercises, and of course, downtime to explore the town and rainforests of Jacó. Having been on a surfboard only a handful of times previously, this was a […]

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February 18th, 2021

The Human Side of Medicine — Grieving the Loss of Our Patients

Masood Pasha Syed, MBBS

“The life of the dead is placed in the memories of the living” — Marcus Tullius Cicero Growing up in a family of physicians, I was exposed early to healthcare from the provider side. Some days, my father would come home late after a long surgery with an unanticipated complication or an unexpected outcome and would […]

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December 31st, 2020

What Time Is It?

Sneha Shah, MD

How many minutes have you given yourself to read this post? There was a time when none of us could tell time. Imagine not knowing what the ever-moving hands of a clock are trying to reveal. My memories skew, but in that era before I could tell time, all I remember is laughter, effervescence, and […]

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November 19th, 2020

Where DO We Go from Here? Being an Osteopathic Physician in 2020

Stephanie Braunthal, DO

The latter portion of 2020 has brought forth an unfortunate series of comments in the news, on social media, and even in the ad of a fashionable scrub company that called into question the credibility of DOs to practice medicine and surgery and to serve as public health experts. As a proud graduate of an […]

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November 4th, 2020

The Rise of the Fall

Masood Pasha Syed, MBBS

Having matched into a residency in New England, I was super excited to experience all the seasons. I grew up in tropical countries where we had two seasons — “rainy season” and  “not-so-rainy season” — both of them superimposed on reasonably warm temperatures. Three years out of residency and still in New England, I enjoy […]

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October 7th, 2020

“We Did Everything We Could.”

Vivek Sant, MD

Can we do better when delivering bad news in trauma? On a recent trauma call, we had a busy night, culminating in a horrific motorcycle trauma that came in early in the morning. The patient had devastating injuries and ended up dying. The detectives finally tracked down the patient’s family. I cleaned myself up, put […]

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September 11th, 2020

Emotional Intelligence During a Pandemic

Masood Pasha Syed, MBBS

“We are the keepers of each other’s future,” my program director said in her speech on our graduation day. These words have resonated in my mind and inspired me in laying the foundation for my chief residency year. We all have the opportunity and responsibility to teach and learn from each other. I remember the […]

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November 7th, 2019

Painting in a Visual (Abstract) Medium

Justin Davis, MBBS

I’m not creative. I wish I were. I listen to music (with my particular choices being classical and music from video games) and wonder to myself how people are able to come up with such amazing pieces of art and media. I’ve tried it myself. I used to play piano back in med school, before […]

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August 20th, 2019

Bias in the Residency Ranking Process

Scott Hippe, MD

“Can we please try to be objective about this!” I said these words to myself over and over during this year’s interview season as we formulated our residency rank list. At my institution, the residents and faculty have equal sway in forming the rank list. The chief resident facilitates the resident half of the process. […]

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