GME

Wendy A. Horwitz, PhD Wendy A. Horwitz, PhD (1 Posts)

Guest Author

Penn State Abington


Wendy Horwitz’s essays, editorials, and reviews have been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Afterimage, Neurology (Humanities Section), Jewish Literary Journal, Intrepid Times, and McClatchy-Tribune News Service, among others. Trained as a pediatric psychologist, she writes and teaches health humanities in the Philadelphia area.




White Coat, Black Book

At the start of medical school, many students participate in the “White Coat Ceremony.” Before peers, faculty, and family, they recite a modern version of the Hippocratic Oath (or other affirmations like the Geneva Declaration) and don the short white jacket they’ll wear during the four years of school. Although they begin seeing patients only in the third year, part of the ceremony’s intention is to convey that care for patients begins, in a sense, on this first day. When they earn their M.D., they are entitled to the knee-length version.

Robotic Surgery Training in Residency: Good or Bad?

The rapid introduction of revolutionary technologies like minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgeries will exponentially increase complexity in medicine, law, education and ethics. Roboethics deals with the code of conduct that robotic engineers must implement in the artificial intelligence of a robot. Through this kind of ethics, roboticists must guarantee that autonomous systems will exhibit ethically acceptable behavior in situations in which robots interact with patients.

Do Individuals from Low-Income Families Belong in Medicine? (Yes!)

Recently, several attending physicians sparked controversy on Twitter by implying that low-income medical students or trainees should not pursue careers in medicine. While these tweets have since been deleted, the systemic injustices that they echo still ring in the highest levels of modern medical education. As a medical trainee from an impoverished household, I have spent almost my entire post-secondary education and medical training as part of an invisible demographic.

Residency Training in the Era of COVID-19: A Program Director Weighs In

As a program director, I am worried about my trainees who are already challenged with the usual stressors of graduate medical education (GME). This new illness is threatening to upend and disrupt our program in ways that I cannot even imagine, and therefore cannot plan for.

July 1, Take 2: Navigating the Transition from Intern to Senior Resident

You could feel it in the air, in how the nurses double-checked the orders, how the attendings’ notes bloated in size, and even in how the patients, despite their general lack of knowledge towards the inner workings of the hospital, exuded mild apprehension. It was day one of the academic year, the day that the new interns — my new interns — started.

Why Being Kind Matters: Mistreatment of Residents Leads to Increased Rates of Burnout and Suicidal Ideation

Residency is a challenging time plagued by long hours, overwhelming clinical service loads, escalating documentation requirements, and inadequate resources for support. A recently published study in the New England Journal of Medicine illustrates how mistreatment in the training environment takes an additional toll on medical trainees.

Patients, Providers and the Working Class: Lessons for Health Workers from the Closing of Hahnemann Hospital

I had just started my first clerkship of third year at a nearby hospital when the news broke. Hahnemann Hospital, the main teaching hospital of my medical school, was closing. More accurately, the hedge fund manager who purchased the hospital a year earlier was filing for bankruptcy. He separated the valuable Center City real estate from the hospital itself to ensure a tidy profit for investors at the expense of patients and staff.

Nichole Roxas, MD Nichole Roxas, MD (2 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

Yale School of Medicine


Nichole is a psychiatry resident at Yale.