Resident Physician Contributing Writer
UT Health Houston
Shveta Abraham is a third year resident in the General Psychiatry Department at UT Health Houston. She went to the University of Houston where she majored in Biology and minored in Medicine and Society and Psychology. Shveta has always been interested in helping fight against the stigma related to mental health through education. One form she has always valued is writing. Through writing various forms, she strives to both express herself and the values and beliefs she holds dear. In her free time not spent writing, she likes to sing karaoke, bake and watch an enormous number of movies.
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all was not well. In a string of unfortunate events that would make Lemony Snicket jealous, my father had come down with the flu, the presents were indefinitely delayed and I found myself – an internal medicine intern – losing the battle to maintain my consciousness in the team workroom. The holiday season, usually my favorite part of the year, was definitely on my naughty list. At least there …
It is very difficult to believe that I am already more than halfway done with residency at this point, and that it is time to figure out what I want to do after these three years are up. Once again, what’s surprising and different to me is the structure for training in the United States: having to apply at the end of year 2 for a fellowship that will start after year 3, seems so early, but I am learning to accept that these are the American ways.
The second week of September was the epitome of emotional whiplash. Monday the 12th, we celebrated our one-year engagement anniversary in the ICU. We had gotten engaged in an apple orchard, so I brought in apple cider and cider donuts. She still wanted to keep fighting and didn’t want her doctors to give up on her. She was on four mcg/min of norepinephrine to keep her blood pressure up.
I had just started my residency in Burlington, Vermont when she started having symptoms again. She was to receive her treatment in Rochester, New York, which meant we were apart most of the year. I had been planning to propose in October, but now all plans were out the window. Despite the fear that swelled inside, I made sure to propose before she started chemo, to show that I would be with her no matter what.
Residency is hard. Anyone who has gone through it can attest to that. While I was getting intimately acquainted with this reality in August, 1.5 months into the first year of my internal medicine residency, my soon-to-be fiancé was diagnosed with cancer.
Hello, come in, / and welcome to peds clinic! / My attention is on you / for the next 20 minutes.
Exploring ways to teach nonverbal communication in medical training can prove to be beneficial to physicians in the ICU. One way to teach non-verbal, body-based communication is through the language of the body itself — dance.
In my last installment, I mentioned I would like to write about my process of getting into a residency program in the United States. As soon as I promised this, I remembered the number of steps involved, so please forgive me if I forget to mention something. The path has substantially changed since COVID and differs greatly by individual circumstance. What made the whole process so confusing was having to create multiple accounts and profiles for multiple websites; the next step was often unclear until I called the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and explicitly asked for instructions.
There was a dark, empty space. / Stillness, / Where there should have been movement.
Your mom gets tetanus (Tdap) / before you’re born, / Plus COVID and flu / are the norm.
It’s only 7:15 a.m.? I can finish folding my clothes before I have to leave for clinic, I thought to myself. Though the day was young, I had already been quite productive — I started the laundry, made myself breakfast, picked up around my room, and even found time to journal briefly about the day before. Surely I could check one more thing off my to-do list.
A few months have passed since I wrote my last column article, so now it’s time to get back into it. What has happened in the meantime? Well, I had baby #2, which meant I was lucky enough to take seven weeks of maternity leave from residency.
Resident Physician Columnist
Hillsboro Medical Center
Aline went to medical school at the University of Essen in Germany. She started training at the University Hospital Essen in Internal Medicine with the focus on GI/Hepatology. She then followed one of her former supervisors in 2017 to the University Hospital Magdeburg and continued her training for two years. In 2019, she started a two-year research fellowship at Johns Hopkins University with a scholarship by the German Research Foundation. During that time, she decided not to return to Germany and instead attempt to become a physician in the US. She has started her internal medicine residency this year at Hillsboro Medical Center in Oregon.
Surviving IM/G
I am an international medical graduate in internal medicine residency (IM/G), sharing my experiences with all of you. If you are an IMG, hopefully you can relate to some of the stories and feel encouraged, because we are not alone. If you are an American-based resident: I hope these stories help you better understand your IMG colleagues a bit better. And above all, I am hoping to hear from you as well: let's share knowledge, experiences, and pave a path for the many other IMGs seeking to fulfill their dreams in the United States.
