By Lamario Williams, GS-2 As a first-year medical student busy with the Fundamentals of Medicine block in the Fall of 2017, I wanted to find a clinical volunteering opportunity. This was important to me because it helped me envision the “light” at the end of the proverbial tunnel. We had been learning how to take a patient’s… Read More Unique Pre-Clinical Opportunities: Spirit of Luke / A Promise to Help
By Alana Jones, GS-2 I’m serious. I haven’t seen my mentor (or any of my lab members) in-person since March 13. When you can do data analyses from anywhere, you’re not exactly at the top of the list on the campus re-entry plan. So, we’re all working remotely for the foreseeable future. And even though this… Read More Help, I haven’t seen my mentor in 6 months!
by Lamario Williams, GS-2 “Sick and tired of being sick and tired…” Fannie Lou Hamer famously echoed these words in 1964, but this colloquialism is a common way of expressing the impact of stress in African American Vernacular English. Prolonged stress can negatively impact health outcomes, but this topic is not widely discussed in the… Read More Stressed
Diversity and Inclusion. These “buzzwords” are often met with dismissal by some medical school applicants, but these principles should be embraced by anyone who wants to dedicate their lives to the service of others. We must promote diversity and work to eliminate the biases that perpetuate worse healthcare and outcomes for marginalized populations. We must… Read More Diversity & Inclusion: More Than Just Checking a Box
I’ve come to realize that the quality of my coffee predicts, with near perfect accuracy, the quality of my day. Being new to the Birmingham area, identifying where to get a quality cup was a priority for me. So, on a blustery during a blustery October week, fellow coffee enthusiast Ben Lin (MS-1) and I… Read More Seeds: A Birmingham Coffee Staple
Alana Jones, GS-1 One of the upsides (if there is one) of studying for Step 1 is that it forces you to get acquainted with new study spaces. I wished I could have been the kind of person who could sit on my sofa for 10 hours a day for 3 months, but I realized… Read More Studying: Location, Location, Location
If you ask our students, many of them will tell you that one of the best things about the UAB MSTP is its focus on families. And for many of us, that family includes some animal friends! We all recently found ourselves sharing pictures of our pets with each other, and we figured we would… Read More House Pets of the MSTP
Last month, I had the incredible pleasure of attending the Coalition for Disability Access in Health Science Education symposium in Washington, D.C. The MSTP has been incredibly supportive of my journey through medical school with an autoimmune condition, and they actually paid for my registration, flight, and lodging for the conference (THANK YOU, UAB MSTP!).… Read More Conference Reflection: Disability Access in Health Science Education
With the end of my second year quickly approaching, I took time during my winter break to reflect. One strategy I use in preventing burnout and staying focused is to organize my thoughts and give myself some context: why am I here, and what do I hope to accomplish? 1. Medicine The Merriam-Webster definition… Read More Motivation
Recently, I had the chance to attend the Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring (DREAM) Conference at UAB. The conference was entirely virtual; although students gathered together in certain rooms on campus, we signed in to an online seminar series that was being broadcast simultaneously at multiple universities across the U.S. To my knowledge, this… Read More Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring (DREAM) Conference: 3 Key Takeaways
