Insights on Residency Training

August 19th, 2016

#OrlandoStrong #EndGunViolence

Kashif Shaikh, MD

I will never forget Sunday morning, June 12. I was off that day. I usually sleep with my cell phone on silent mode, and I slept late after binge watching some movie marathon the night before. I was still half asleep when I picked up my cell phone to see what time it was — but what I actually saw on my phone was a jumble of […]

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August 1st, 2016

Four-Oh-Wunk

April Edwards, MD

I’m April, and I’m the incoming PGY-5 Chief for the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Just last month, I had my 4th graduation from something since I finished high school. Residency, it turns out, is long and hard. I’ve spent tons of hours practicing the art of sphincter control each time that […]

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July 15th, 2016

What Is Resilience?

Jamie Riches, DO

NEJM Journal Watch is happy to welcome a new panel of Chief Resident bloggers for the 2016-2017 academic year. Here’s a sample of what our new bloggers will be discussing, starting on August 1! “Resilience” is defined as the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. […]

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June 17th, 2016

My Last Day in Greece

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

Reflections and observations from my last day in Greece as part of the SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society) medical mission for Syrian refugees: 1) It rained during clinic hours. It was a bit inconvenient for the team. For the refugees, it was catastrophic. Their tents, already damaged, allow the drops of precipitation to find their ways in and soak […]

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May 23rd, 2016

My Third Day in Greece

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

1) At one point today in the Idomini refugee camp, I was playing catch with a beautiful baby girl in between some of the tents. She could not have been much older than my own daughter and, like my daughter, would throw the ball backwards over her head instead of towards me and then would […]

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May 22nd, 2016

My Second Day in Greece

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

1) The following are real conversations the team has had with patients/refugees in our short time here: Young lady who came in with urinary symptoms: “How old are you?” “I am 27 years old… I hope this is the last year of my life.”   Teenage male: “I have to get out of here. I’ve spent 3 months of my […]

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May 21st, 2016

My First Day in Greece

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

I am participating in the SAMS (Syrian American Medical Society) medical mission in Greece. 1) Loneliness is truly the darkest consequence of this crisis. The Syrian people haven’t just been kicked out of their homes. They were stripped away from their neighborhoods, friends, and family via death, destruction, sickness, and tough decisions that they had to make about splitting […]

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May 20th, 2016

Traveling Can Be Frustrating

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

Note from the NEJM Journal Watch staff — Ahmad Yousaf is currently on a trip to help care for refugees in Greece. He is sending daily updates to share his thoughts; we will be posting them here daily.   The discomforts of travel are real. Stress, related to the unknown: flight times, traffic to the airport, crying babies, […]

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May 6th, 2016

Declaration of Death

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

“Is he dead?” I stepped up closer. He was yellow. Bright yellow. Steve had been admitted to the hospital for altered mental status when his last PET Scan revealed that the pancreatic cancer had spread from the tail of his pancreas into his liver where it now blocked the ducts that carried the bile out of […]

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April 27th, 2016

The Dark Side of Medicine

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

The following is paraphrased documentation, authored by a physician I know, regarding an intoxicated patient in the ER: 1AM: Patient is telling nurse, “Before I leave, I need everyone’s name for my lawsuit. Tell the phlebotomist that if he’s good, he’ll  get a cut.” 1:40AM: Patient is making inappropriate sexual comments and is verbally aggressive with medical staff. He […]

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