“Don’t you ever get bored?” It wasn’t a question I’d expected from my high school summer student on her second day in the lab. And I was equally surprised when I found myself saying “all the time.” My recent experience mentoring a student has been rich and rewarding, but not for the reasons I anticipated. […]
A Day in the Life
Tackling Twitter as a Graduate Student
Posted by | A Day in the LifeI grew up during the rise of social media. Born in 1995, I have watched social media transform from inconsequential platforms for storing your random thoughts to a multi-billion-dollar industry in which influence serves as a form of currency. I have had to learn how to navigate these changes on my own, and I have […]
Finding the Medicine in Historical Drama
Posted by | A Day in the LifeEvery evening when I get home from campus, I put on the teakettle, get out my cross-stitch and flip on a TV show. Sawing noises and screaming come from the TV set as I stitch church steeples into blank linen. You may think I am watching American Horror Story or Hannibal, but the show is […]
Meditation: Building a Community Across the Hopkins Campus
Posted by | A Day in the Life, Events and Happenings“Kidneys…relax…” I know where my kidneys are located thanks to my anatomy classes, but how would I make them relax, and do I even want them to relax? They fulfill a pretty crucial physiological role. These and many other thoughts came to mind as I sat during a guided, progressive relaxation mediation organized by medical […]
Summer Transitions: Learnings from Residency
Posted by | A Day in the LifeEvery summer, a fresh crop of physicians enters the workforce. Overnight, trainees begin new roles and take on new responsibilities. You could imagine that we transition gracefully, like caterpillars turned butterflies, wings beating with effortless aerodynamics upon emerging from the chrysalis. Truthfully, we are more akin to baby birds, pushed off a branch and made […]
Stockholm Syndrome City
Posted by | A Day in the LifeAt the time, chaos and disappointment were all I saw in Baltimore. Imagine sitting at the sixth story window, looking out across the Baltimore skyline, and seeing fire. Heading to work around 8 a.m., news circulates that armored vehicles are set to post around the medical campus, should riots become unruly. Morning turns to lunch, […]
Knocking on the Door: How to Leave Your Postdoc Position
Posted by | A Day in the Life, Events and HappeningsGuest post by Parnaz Daneshpajouhnejad, M.D., a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The following is not Daneshpajouhnejad's own personal experience but rather inspired by a talk by Megan Bohn, assistant director of postdoctoral affairs, during the event, “Exit Interview: How to Tell the Boss […]
“Digame”: Communication Beyond Language Barriers
Posted by | A Day in the LifeDuring my last outpatient pediatrics clinic in residency, a patient and his mother reminded me that the therapeutic relationship can transcend language. I had been taking care of a young boy, whom I’ll refer to as “A,” since the beginning of his life. He had developmental delays and several other medical problems. His mother was […]
Culture Shock: My Experience with Classism in Higher Education
Posted by | A Day in the LifeThis summer, I took a road trip that ran through South Carolina and decided to stop by Sumter, a little town where I had lived for a few years as a preteen. Of Sumter’s 40,000 residents, 20.6% live below the poverty line, with a median household income of $38,562. Although the poverty rate in Baltimore […]
Water Conservation, Research and Life in Cape Town, South Africa
Posted by | A Day in the LifeI went to Cape Town, South Africa, to perform predissertation research on water management. I returned home with a transformed attitude toward personal water conservation. Soon after I landed in Cape Town in mid-June, I heard the catchy phrase: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” In case you are […]