Trigger Warning: Suicide
Dear MS1s,
Y’all no doubt have already been bombarded with messaging about wellness at orientation or maybe read online on the internet. Jumping topics rapid fire from “imposter syndrome” to “professionalism” and even “team-based learning.” It’s tough to learn anything about what these terms really mean when it...
Dear MS1s,
“Golden Rule #1: Your priority is ALWAYS your own personal safety. Look around—assess for risks. Always WALK. Keep an eye open for changing conditions.”
These phrases flashed across the screen in Law Auditorium, bright text standing out against the background of a plain PowerPoint slide. Our entire class was...
Dear MS1s,
This is Rebekah, an MS2 (!) from Korea and Virginia. I’m writing to you to pass on some practical tips I wish I had known earlier when I was an MS1 navigating the cancer diagnosis and death of a parent during the first year of medical school. Granted,...
Dear MS1s,
We are so excited to welcome you to PSOM this fall! As you prepare to start your first year of medical school, I’m sure you have also been thinking about all that it took to get here: countless hours spent studying for the MCAT, long interview days, and...
Day 1 of Clerkships:Surgeon: “What nerves innervate the groin?” Me: “Uh I’m not sure specifically.” Surgeon: “Oh they don’t teach that to you anymore? What anatomy textbook do you use?”Me: “Netter I think.”Surgeon: “And it wasn’t in there? Hmm…” Me: …* * *A haiku:I thought I'd try outOrthopedic surgerysuch misogyny * * *
Very...
During The Gold Humanism Honor Society’s Solidarity Week in March, five outstanding high school students shared their perspectives about societal difficulties unique to teenagers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pictured above along with medical student attendees are the panelists (pictured in the third square from the top left, moving right),...
Dear MS1s,
Each individual has a unique M1 experience—some good, some bad, often a mix. For me, M1 was hard. Really hard. It’s very difficult for me to parse which parts of it were hard because of the pandemic nightmare and which parts were hard because medical education is, quite...
Dear M1s,
Be wary of seeking advice from my medical school class. As the class of COVID-19, we first met our classmates one hot August afternoon during the first of many COVID-19 tests. We took the Declaration of Geneva in our living rooms during a BlueJeans video call while wearing...
Hello there, MS1s!
Congratulations on beginning your first year of medical school! And, congratulations on reading through the lovely apenndx magazine to receive some definitely well-thought-out and encouraging advice. As a person who spends half her time wallowing in self-doubt and the other half sleeping, I'm the perfect person to...
My cursed “MED SCHOOL APPS” spreadsheet lurks in the deepest, darkest depths of my computer desktop. It has been buried in its grave since the winter of my senior year, but I resurfaced the wretched thing recently to share with a friend going through the process herself. I double-tapped...
Dear MS1,
Stop trying to be perfect. You’re not pre-med anymore. For (maybe) the first time in your life, your classes are pass/fail by default. This is for you. So, you can be happier. Take advantage of it. The amount of studying it takes to get that extra 5% in...
Dear MS1s,
I am going to be very honest here - my first year of medical school was absolutely brutal. I cried more than I thought possible. I felt lonelier than I ever expected. I was overwhelmed. The worst part of it all? I thought I was the only one...
Perhaps med school isn’t the best place for someone who dreads memorization, or hasn’t been in school for four years, or is frustrated by having to learn the minutia of molecules and mechanisms when these seem like Google-able factoids only tangentially related to why one wants to be a...
“Is med school as hard as they say?”
I asked the question of many people ahead of me. The answer often came with a hesitation, a rocking of the head, a “kinda,” and an attempt at assuaging worries. Either it nonchalantly reassured me everything is fine, or wistfully told me...
On day one of my vascular surgery rotation, I scrubbed in on a bilateral above-the-knee amputation. The patient had been transferred from an OSH (outside hospital) for stenting after 8 days of a massive aortic occlusion without any intervention and severe limb ischemia, and sadly our interventions ended up...
Resident on the labor floor: “You can sit there and study or whatever.”
I spent my first day of clerkship year learning how to properly change a diaper in the Well Baby Nursery. I was so slow at it that the baby started pooping all over its clothes/blanket. A truly...
Prompt: Tell us about an instance of failure that you encountered.
"As an MS3, I failed my surgery shelf. Nobody ever talks to you about failing. And I had always read these anonymous posts about failing pre-clinical exams and shrugged them off, because until clerkship, I had been lucky. That...
The global climate crisis continues to escalate, accompanied by increasing evidence of its threats to human health and by a small, but growing, chorus of calls for action from the healthcare field & medical education community. In honor of Climate Week at Penn, Perelman’s Healthcare Sustainability Group surveyed the...
Every few days, when I'd listen to my teammates talk, I'd smile to myself and think, One day, this person will change the world, and I'll have known them. Each one of them has something I don't. Each one of them is someone I want to be more like. Each one of them has taught me so much that I didn’t know about what it means to be a medical student, a citizen, and a friend.
Medical school is a lot like Chipotle. It’s fast – seriously, where did my MS1 year go? It’s casual – socks and slides were a staple in my wardrobe for visits from even the most high-profile of speakers. It makes you sleepy – just ask my classmates for picture proof. And, like Chipotle’s famously overstuffed burritos, most of us are working hard to keep it all together. As such, it feels only right to convey my unsolicited advice for thriving (and surviving) during the first year of medical school through the lens of my burrito bowl order at Chipotle.
Rest strong in the knowledge that by simply showing up and authentically engaging, you are already enough, have already been proven, and are empowered to make choices that lead to a fulfilling future. Ask yourself: How many days has it been since you took a day off from medical school? When was the last time you engaged in a hobby that brings you joy?
But this isn’t even what makes my classmates stand out — rather, it’s their passion and humbleness in everything they do. Never before had I been around so many diverse, highly talented, and down-to-earth individuals with such a wide range of hobbies and quirky skills, be it ice-skating, DJing, dancing competitively, running marathons, writing novels, or singing acapella.
You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family, and you can’t choose your learning team. But like family, your learning team can provide a vital support structure as you navigate medical school. I’ve gotten to meet quite a few of you through interviews, StORM, PMCF, and Preview events, and let me tell you: your classmates are awesome. You are smart, passionate, driven, and interesting people.
Now that I’ve shown you some of the disturbingly mundane, easily forgotten, embarrassingly unfiltered, suspiciously fragmented, difficult-to-summarize minutiae of my first year at Penn Med, I’m tempted to add my editorial thoughts to the above — but I won’t. What is far more important is your interpretation of the excerpts as you live out your own MS1 year.
The banning of tear gas in international warfare as an acknowledgment of its dangerous nature is a farce: most warfare occurs domestically, between civilians and the government forces who once swore to protect and defend those civilians.