Addressing Pervasive Homophobia in Medical Education
Michael H. O’Brien
University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville
Gun Violence is Every Doctors’ Lane: Ways Healthcare Providers Can Protect Public Health
Alexander Pomerantz
Harvard Medical School Boston, Harvard Kennedy School Cambridge
Tiana Walker
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Raquel Atencio and Matthew Deblinger
Florida State University College of Medicine and Aballi Milne Kalil
What’s in the Cauldron: Witches, Folk Remedies, and their Contributions to Modern Medicine
Mason Tate Bennett
Trinity School of Medicine
The Danger of Genetic Risk Scores for Worsening Race-Based Disparities in Healthcare
Sohail Zahid
Harvard Medical School
How the Texas Heartbeat Bill Will Affect Low-Income Women of Color Across the U.S.: A Commentary
Natalia Eugene, Anna Kheyfets, and Mackenzie Bennett
Howard University College of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Casey P. Schukow
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Class of 2022
Peter James
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Class of 2022
Alex LT Clos, Ashley P Cohen, BSN, Lindsay E Edwards, BA, Allison HH Martin, MSc, Tazim S Merchant, Tricia Rae Pendergrast, Matthew A Siegel, Roger S Smith
GetMePPE Chicago
Gurjas S. Bajaj and Parna Prajapati, MD, MPH
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
William Doak and Neha G. Reddy, MPH
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Class of 2023
Nathan McLaughlin, Trevor Takami, and Cindy Lin, MD, FASCM
University of Washington School of Medicine
Tarika Srinivasan and Bethany Brumbaugh
Harvard Medical School
Class of 2024
Each evening, I finish my day in clinic and walk to my car. If I’m lucky, I catch the sunset on my way home. At any other time, I would have stopped to admire the fading sunset sky – the reds, oranges, and blues blended amidst the clouds. At any other time, this view would have brought me a sense of peace and comfort. However, these days the hazy clouds only remind me of lungs ravaged by COVID-19, ground-glass opacities which have swallowed the sky. This pandemic has reshaped how we view the world, literally and figuratively, and will leave us in a haze for some time to come.
Kelly Chen
University of Alabama School of Medicine
Class of 2022
Aaron Troy, MPH, Nina Singh, Anya Krok, MPhil, Drew Adler, Paxton Voigt, Emma Lang, Ally Covello, and Jenna Reich
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Anjali Om, Amna Nawaz, and Namita Mathew
Emory University School of Medicine
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Tiana Walker
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Class of 2022
Jade Connor, MSc, Azfar Hossain, and Maahika Srinivasan, MS
Harvard Medical School
Class of 2022
Ali Mahfuz, MBA and Sujata Ojha
TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine
Nishanth S. Iyengar
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
The poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus," states, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Like Lady Liberty, healthcare workers have bravely adhered to this principle of taking in, helping, and protecting those in need, in particular those "yearning to breathe free" and to survive COVID-19. COVID-19 has shown to have a more amplified negative impact on marginalized and more vulnerable portions of society. It is my hope that we will, as a nation, embody the spirit of this poem to help those most affected, the tired, and the poor, boldly don our masks and use hand sanitizer as Lady Liberty is here. We will make it through this together.
Rachel MacAskill
Baylor College of Medicine
Class of 2022
Sophia Yin
Harvard Medical School
Class of 2022
Neha G. Reddy, MPH, Sarah Nuss, and Sylvianne Shurman, BFA
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Madeline Paton, MS, Gavriel Roda, and Emily Gottenburg, MD
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Benjamin Oseroff, MA, MPhil
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Class of 2024
Palak Patel
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Class of 2024
A physician walks away from her daily scene- a giant looming virus and waves of darkness. As medical students, we strive to help our teams while exhibiting a strong aura for those around us. I want to walk away from this experience as a better health professional. Beauty and strength is found now, in our current.
Anna Rogalska
UIW School of Osteopathic Medicine
Class of 2021
Zach Jaeger, José G Grajales-Reyes, Richard Ferro, MSc., and Donald Rodríguez
Latino Medical Student Association
From the Sidelines
Jin Kyung Kim
As a third year medical student waiting for the transition from pre-clinical didactic learning to hands-on clinical learning, I was faced with an unexpected halt in my long awaited clinical training with the onset of COVID-19. I wondered what best I could do as a student without any licensure in medicine as I read about the brave front-line healthcare workers I aspire to be. One of the ways I chose to utilize this uncertain time in-between online electives is to enlist myself as a volunteer for the Virginia Medical Reserve Corps. My application was marked as a “non-medical volunteer” as a student without a medical license and I expected to help with administrative items. When I showed up for my first assignment as a language interpreter for Korean at a local county COVID-19 drive-thru screening site, I was fitted in extensive personal protective equipment and the reality of this pandemic suddenly hit me. The following poem in iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme is a reflection of my experience as a medical student yearning to be of help during this pandemic from the sidelines at a COVID-19 screening site.
Some wore medical grade clean in all white
Some wore fashion studded with polka dots
Some wore a bandana wrapped around tight
Some wore a piece of an old shirt in knots
Some born in the sixties like my own mom
Some leaned as thin as their own walking cane
Some young students who should have been at prom
Some in strollers with their blue toy airplane
Some did not need me to translate the form
Some asked me for my language assistance
Some approached me close I could feel their warmth
Some made my voice grow hoarse from a distance
Some told me they have never been sick, ever
Some said they lost their sense of taste and smell
Some revealed shortness of breath and fever
Some scrolled through the news and felt more unwell
We all stood under the Virginia sun:
A line of over a thousand patients,
Tables of nurses faced them one-on-one,
Volunteers united under patience
I stood drenched in sweat writing intake forms,
In N95, gown, gloves, and face shield,
Hoping I made no mistakes on the forms,
My own fears of infection well concealed
I stood wondering and dripping with sweat
When will I finally start my third year?
As a student without a license yet,
Am I at all making a difference here?
Jin Kyung Kim
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
Class of 2022