When talking to students considering medicine as a career, I talk about all of the advantages or taking care of patients. I also say to everyone – “Remember, it is still a JOB.“ Physicians are stuck in the middle these days. The expectations are high, and rightfully so. Our patients’ lives and livelihoods are on […]
Author: rkhmd
Paralyzation or Triumph in Difficulty
We’ve all been there. We’ve been at the difficult junction in a case or found surgical progress stalled. We’ve planned for all possible paths a procedure might lead us down, but we operate on the human body, and not everything is predictable in every case. Perhaps something irreplaceable has fallen onto the floor or is […]
The Patient, A Doctor and Their Shadow
The doctor-patient relationship is a truly remarkable bond. On regular days, patients come into clinics and hospitals and tell a relative stranger about their life, sometimes details they do not tell their closest friends and family. On their worst days, patients are transported to emergency departments and trauma centers in extreme duress, with life and limb-threatening […]
Choosing Where to Go To Medical School
When it was time to choose where to go to medical school, I didn’t think all that hard. Indiana is unique. There is only one medical school in Indiana, at least there was when I was applying. (There is now IU, offering an MD degree and an osteopathic program affiliated with Marian University in Indianapolis.) […]
Excelling During an Orthopaedic Surgery Rotation
Trying to get a job in the middle of a pandemic is less than ideal. Given that, when you get an opportunity to work with residents and faculty one-on-one, it is crucial not to waste that time. Don’t get black-balled before you’ve ever even walked into the hospital! It’s essential to understand who is usually […]
I Don’t Understand Guns
This post is different from what I’ve been posting so far, but I want to share my thoughts. This post is my opinion. Some people may not agree. That’s ok. We don’t all have to agree. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to […]
Academic Failure Is More Frightening
It’s one thing to fail at a goal to participate in a sports program. It’s quite another for a student interested in getting into medical school to experience academic failure. There’s no place where this is more likely to happen than in battle with every pre-medical student’s arch-nemesis: organic chemistry. I was a good general […]
Success Doesn’t Come Without Some Failure
Not everything we try will be successful. I wasn’t necessarily used to failing in high school. The competition was stiff among many of my classmates, but hard work paid off. I graduated as the salutatorian of my class and won plenty of academic awards and scholarships. Things change when the pool gets more substantial, and […]
Navigating a Large University
Indiana University was absolutely the right place for me to go for my undergraduate education. I’ll never regret the experience, the knowledge I received, and the friends that I met there. I chose biology as a major, not because I felt that I needed that education to enter medical school, but because it was the […]
Planning for and Navigating the Medical School Application
I wanted to take a brief break from telling my story to discuss medical school admissions and the AMCAS – the standard medical school application. My hope would be someone in the pre-med years, or perhaps earlier, who is planning to apply to medical school would read this and start to think ahead. Applying and […]