Category: Education
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Medical Spanish at Mayo Clinic
Lea DacyRochester, Minnesota, United States The anesthesiologist was thrilled when she asked a Spanish-speaking post-surgery patient to wiggle his toes, and he understood and complied. A medical secretary appropriately triaged a caller from Caracas. Other colleagues on their lunchbreaks were able to direct Spanish-speaking visitors to the nearest restroom or coffee shop. These Mayo Clinic…
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Thomas Wakley (1795–1862) and The Lancet
When in April 1820 five members of a radical group plotted to murder the British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, they were sentenced to be hanged as well as publicly decapitated and dissected. An unknown man wearing a mask appeared in the square and carried out the task with such speed and dexterity that people thought…
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Somerset Maugham on studying medicine (abstracted and in parts paraphrased from Of Human Bondage)
In 1897 Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) qualified as a physician but never practiced medicine and became a full-time writer.1 In his 1915 novel Of Human Bondage he drew on his experiences at St. Thomas’s Hospital to describe what it was like to be a medical student at that time. He first has his young protagonist practice…
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Teaching social determinants of health through art
Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States When teaching medical students, I often incorporate works of art to introduce students to social determinants of health and to gain insight into the nature and importance of whole person care, the physical, behavioral, emotional, social, and spiritual factors that contribute to well-being. Social determinants of health (SDH) are factors…
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Principles and Practice of Medicine: Sir Stanley Davidson
JMS Pearce Hull, England Davidson’s The Principles & Practice of Medicine, 1956 edition. A textbook of medicine is a single work covering all the major specialist topics, aimed principally at the undergraduate medical student. What constitutes a good textbook of medicine is plainly a subjective judgment; it would be invidious to select one of…
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Saving the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “For to this lady, more than any other single person, save Johns Hopkins himself, does the School of Medicine owe its being.”1– Alan Chesney on Mary Elizabeth Garrett Johns Hopkins (1795–1873) was born in Maryland, one of eleven children of a Quaker couple. His father was a tobacco planter. Johns’ first job…
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What is the point?
Aariya SrinivasanChennai, India I am yet another young doctor struggling to find a place and purpose in this world. When I was in medical school, all I could ever think about was how to get through the next exam. Most of us do. We sit for days and nights together, prepare for fifteen hours a…
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The fainting medical student
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Fall backward if you faint, and not across the patient.”1– Surgeon Sir Lancelot Sprat, in the film Doctor in the House The squeamishness of the beginning medical student or intern during the dissection of a cadaver or in the operating room has become a cinematic cliché. In the films Not as a…
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A day in the team room
Kirin SaintAnn Arbor, MI Today is Monday, May 2. The day starts before the sun has risen, before pink-lavender hues warm the earth, as two internal medicine interns slink in, yawning and bleary eyed, careful not to spill their coffee onto their well-worn scrubs. The residents stride into the room, greet one another, lament the…