Yesterday was Baylor Med’s (BCM) second-look for accepted applicants. To my understanding, this is the first time we’ve had an official “second look”, and in retrospect, I feel it was a success. I had a chance to meet some outstanding people and reunite with applicants I had interviewed over the previous months. It’s nice to […]

Undergrad introduced me to an interesting unification of math, medicine, and physics – biophysics. I’ve decided to spend my short month of ENT research exploring the electrophysiological properties of guinea pig cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs).

The VA hospital was an amazing way to end my internal medicine experience, mainly because of how extraordinary my team and attending were! As a parting gift, the VA graciously bestowed me with a nasty case of the common cold right before my shelf exam. I struggled to study on my “cram day” and was […]

The overwhelming majority of the patients I’ve encountered on the wards have diabetes mellitus (DM). While there are countless ways to manage DM as an outpatient (insulin injections, biguanides, sulfonylureas, etc.), sliding scale insulin (SSI) seems to be the most routinely used method of controlling blood glucose (BG) for hospital inpatients. SSI provides patients with […]

On more than one occasion, I’ve shared my desire to pursue microsurgery with some of the residents and attendings, and on more than one occasion, I’ve been told that I just don’t have that kind of personality. An upperclassmen said I’m “too happy-go-lucky” and not “stern enough” to fit in with the surgeon stereotype. A […]

There’s a well known stereotype that doctors have incredibly poor handwriting. While I accepted this “rumor” to be true, I’ve verified it first hand by working at St. Luke’s where all the notes are handwritten.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with once saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Such is the state of modern healthcare. We all want costs to go down, but how have we actually changed our approach to managing patients? Medical students on the wards are […]

On the first day of orientation for internal medicine (IM), the faculty noted that they now have statistical evidence which supports the notion that students who start on IM tend to do better on all their subsequent rotations. Why? The reasons are up for debate, but halfway through the rotation, I think it deals with […]

Six weeks of internal medicine done. Six weeks left. *Sighs* It seems that each step in my training to become a physician passes at a progressively faster rate. What’s worrisome is that the shelf exam is in six weeks, and I’m not even halfway through my main prep book. It’s gonna be a long (but […]

After all the patients I’ve seen with ascites secondary to hepatic cirrhosis, I wondered why we tend to start them on 100 mg Aldactone (spironolactone) with a 40 mg Lasix (furosemide) adjuvant. What’s the rationale behind this ratio? What’s the added benefit of using two different kinds of diuretics to reduce the excessive fluid volume […]