How Kobe Bryant Led Me to Medicine
After Kobe Bryant’s tragic death, a medical student reflects on the ways the basketball icon inspired him to overcome personal challenges and develop an interest in medicine.
The Human Behind the Body: A Medical Student’s Experience with Cadaveric Dissection
The hardest part about dissecting Sir was when he no longer looked human. When we had cut and sawed and scraped to the point when I could not see Sir’s face — or a semblance of any face — I felt, for the first time, that I had taken something inviolable from him. How many […]
From Home to Hopkins
At 11 p.m. PST on July 5 — less than three hours after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rattled my home in Southern California — shock waves also went through the sports world. Basketball superstar Kawhi Leonard, who had just delivered Toronto its first ever NBA championship, surprisingly announced he would return to his native Los […]
Movie Review of “End Game”
Guest post by medical student Barry Bryant. The original article can be found on Closler.org. “End Game” is an Oscar-nominated short documentary directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film takes place at the University of California at San Francisco and incorporates the Zen Hospice Project. The overarching theme of the film is working […]
On Kindness
“Whatever happens tomorrow you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.” This is one of my favorite quotes from Captain America because it reminds me that at the end of the day, no matter how superhuman people think we are — whether […]
Lessons from the Wards
At the end of May, I finished graduate school and resumed medical school. Returning to clinical rotations with a fresh perspective, I have been able to more clearly reflect on the many lessons we learn from everyday interactions with patients, caregivers and colleagues. I would like to share a few valuable lessons. My first rotation […]
The Simplest of Remedies: Rediscovering the Experience of Healing
I sat, enveloped by the clinic’s dusty walls and chalky smell. It felt as if a fog of gray haze had descended over the building and muted the surrounding colors. Two plastic chairs were positioned next to the door, with one single picture of skeletal anatomy hanging above them, forcing the makeshift closet to resemble […]
The Hidden Joys of Medical School
I finished my first marathon last week, a personal mental marathon that took hundreds of hours to complete—my first year of medical school. Our last lecture on that final Friday afternoon was followed by a barrage of claps, applause, cheers, celebratory pictures for Facebook and Instagram photos, and a general sense of urgency to leave […]
Inside a Med Student’s Mind On a Patient Visit
Want to read more from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine? Subscribe to the Biomedical Odyssey blog and receive new posts directly in your inbox. (Disclaimers: Although much of the following comes from my medical education, it should not be generalized to all medical students. Certain details — name, identifiers, complaints — have been modified for privacy […]
Learning from Willard Standiford’s 50 Years in Medicine
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell observes that in many different fields, it seems to require roughly 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert. By my most conservative estimate, Willard Standiford has spent 119,250 hours practicing medicine. He retired at the end of 2016, 50 years after beginning his career as a pediatrician. I met […]