Today I had the esteemed privilege of interviewing a veteran in the psych clinic. I also had the rare experience of witnessing this prototypic American warrior — an individual trained to show no fear, experience no pain, and survive at all costs — break down and bawl uncontrollably at the…
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is routinely used to treat refractory depression and catatonia, especially in the elderly where pharmacotherapy could result in undesirable side effects. Essentially, it involves jolting the brain to create a controlled clonic seizure – the patient loses consciousness, has convulsions, and cannot recollect the procedure. I had…
Over the past week, I’ve sat in on several group therapy sessions for those coping with depression, treatment-resistant mental illnesses, and bipolar disorder. Going in, I was expecting run-of-the-mill conversations – “Hello, my name is _____, I have _____, I’m learning to cope with it.” Truth to be told, I…
For the next two months, I’ll be hearing the most intimate details of my patients’ lives. I will come across those who have lost their grip on reality, those in a situation so dire that they prefer death over life, those who are dependent on substances like alcohol for day-to-day…
Beginning Monday, I’ll be working in the Comprehensive Mental Health Program at the VA Hospital as part of my psychiatry rotation’s first month. Guess it makes sense – I ended my internal medicine (IM) rotation at the VA, and now I’ll be starting psychiatry there. Another month of interacting with veterans…
As part of a Baylor Med neuroscience study assessing the relationship between empathy and memory, I got paid $35 to answer some questions and receive a brain MRI this afternoon. I exported the sequence of images (192 in total) as a video.
I’ve wrapped up my second week of research at the neurosensory center, and I’m still loving it! In spite of repeating the exact same experiment every day, the two ENT residents I’m working with make it incredibly enjoyable. Plus, no two cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs) are alike. I got…
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…
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…