In a way, choosing medicine felt easy. My father is a family physician who exposed me to the field very early. I remember how exciting it was to hear him tell stories about work and explain the strange journals on our kitchen table. His unfailing commitment to his patients and his genuine sense of fulfillment always inspired me.
At times in medical school, it’s easy to get lost in the science and memorization and forget the bigger picture of why you want to be a doctor. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s InFocus weeks come between the major system blocks and are designed to be a break from the studying and an opportunity to think about important aspects of medicine that are not in a traditional medical school curriculum.
Reading for pleasure after a drought feels, I imagine, like a marine animal breaching. Nowadays, an essay stands for indulgence; its serif fonts recall a time when my life was consumed by books (or rather, spent in their consumption). I catch glimpses of a world above, where epic meant poetry, meant story, meant the telling of tales til break of dawn, rather than the late-night perusal of electronic medical records in preparation for morning rounds. A haiku was not written finger-to-phone.
Caroline Beyer, ISMMS MD Candidate, Class of 2018, talks about her conflicting feelings surrounding wearing the white coat.
