Med Student Memoirs: My Expectation Hangover
It was my first day of undergrad and the feeling of pride and excitement were overwhelming. I was thrilled, I was going to be the first in my family to earn a college degree. I checked my email several times a day, and being that it was the first day of college, I...
How to Get into Medical School With A Low GPA
I’m an orthopaedic surgeon...but if you told me I’d be here when I graduated from college, I’d be laughing at you! When I got started in college, I thought I was going to be a premed and apply to medical school. It was not a well-thought-out decision. I thought that...
Finding a Community: Reflections From the 1st Women In White Coats Conference & Wellness Retreat
Community…tribe….collective…sisterhood… These were a few of the words —no— feelings which were echoed through the halls of Chateau Elan during the inaugural Women in White Coats Conference and Wellness Retreat. These feelings expressed the pervasive spirit of unity...
How Working in Global Health Changed Me as a Doctor
Being in medicine requires practitioners to be more than a clinician but also an advocate, coordinator, counselor, information resource and supporter for patients. As physicians we are in an unique position to understand and treat the protean manifestations of...
#WomenPower: What Happens When Female Doctors Join Together
Last year a Texas based physician came under fire after he was quoted in a medical journal stating female physicians earn less because we do not "work as hard". A repost on the Facebook group Physician Mom's Group, an online community of over 70,000 female physicians,...
Awareness to Save Black Mothers
On a busy clinic day in my previous life as an outpatient pediatrician, I recall multitasking from one exam room to the next on a weekday afternoon. Typically, newborns were scheduled for the morning, mostly to ensure things like jaundice checks could be done in a...
#Reality Check: Choosing to Be A Mom-Doctor
I'm a doctor, I'm a woman, I'm a mother to a fiercely independent little girl and I want her to know she can do anything she wants. But I am not a feminist, at least not the way it's been interpreted recently. ( ...and cue in the angry comments) As a fourth year...
You’re the Surgeon?
You’re the surgeon? I usually meet my patients for the first time in the worst condition possible. They’re critically ill from either an injury or a general surgical emergency. As trauma and critical care surgeons, it is common for us to treat the underlying problem...
Why I Chose to Be a Night Shift Doc
Just the other day, someone asked me how long I have been working night shifts in the Emergency Department. The question made me think about the amazing way in which time has flown by and that my stint doing the night shift has been for about 13 years. That is just a...
Perfection is Not Required
I remember June 20th, 2010 like it was yesterday. In the months preceding that day, overwhelm had become my new normal. I had so many hats to wear and it did not seem like I was succeeding in any of my roles. I was a wife, mother of two children ages 2 years and 7...
A Card For Father’s Day
One evening this week I was strolling the stationary aisle of my local grocery store looking for Father’s Day cards. The selection of cards was dizzying; a wealth of color and sparkle and sentiment. This card poked fun at a love of fishing, that one was grateful for...
Traveling Year Round with a Family of Five
If there is such a thing as a travel bug, we have been bitten. I don’t know if this desire was passed on to me or created when my mother would take us on an adventure every other week when we lived in Jamaica. We would travel to the sites on the island and once a year...
The Double Standard for Doctors
“Some reports have come in that you are unapproachable” “Excuse me” I said stone faced while my mind began racing and searching memory banks and files for any instance where I could have been accused of being rude, unapproachable, or unprofessional. No...
What Does It Really Mean To Be A Physician?
Phy·si·cian /fəˈziSHən noun: a person qualified to practice medicine. a person who cures moral or spiritual ills; a healer. This week is National Physicians' Week, with March 30th being designated as a day to recognize and celebrate us as a profession. However, in...
An ImPerfect Life Step
The one constant in life is change and I’m making a big one. It’s hard to be in the position of realizing that what you love to do is negatively impacting your loved one--ME! I have always grown up believing that as a woman I could have it all—and foolishly believed...
