Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Harbor UCLA Medical Center
Saba Malik, MD, MPH is a 2nd year family medicine resident at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. She earned her MD with a distinction in advocacy from Albany Medical College in 2018, prior to which she had completed a masters in public health with a concentration in community health sciences from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She has an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience also from UCLA. She is passionate about health disparities, health justice, holistic and integrative medicine, LGBTQ issues, and improving the health and well being of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
Of all the fulfilling and purposeful vocations to pursue, we’ve ended up trying to find our footing in the vast and ever-changing maze of medicine. Propelled by some combination of privilege, perseverance, and circumstance, we became doctors — many of us with the noble drive to heal and support other humans through the physical and spiritual struggles of life.
I am very pleased to welcome you all to a new academic year at the esteemed institution at which you find yourself, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, thanks to the Match. Late June is always somewhat bittersweet, but it is a simultaneously exciting time in the academic year.
During my fourth year of medical school, I was completely unaware that I was suffering from clinical depression. Even now as I write this, I struggle to put my finger on how it all started. Was my appetite the first thing to go? Or the loss of enjoyment in socializing and sex? Maybe it was all three at once. It is truly too hard to tell.
Neurology resident physician Nita Chen, MD journals through her first year of residency in her graphic medicine column, Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician.
I am an intern physician currently enrolled in a residency program, writing anonymously for fear of of retribution. I am also chronically injured and disabled. In my time off from work, I’ve had the chance to reflect on being injured in residency, and one particular incident comes to mind.
In the 1950s, my grandmother wanted to be a doctor. She asked her father for her dowry money, wanting to use it instead to get her medical degree to become the first female doctor in her hometown. She married another doctor and practiced from an office below her home, accepting vegetables and dry-cleaning services as pay.
“Good morning, I’m Dr. Watt and I’m going to be taking care of you today.”
Dear intern: I see you. Yes — you over there. That unsuspecting look on your face tells me exactly what you must be thinking. You are no longer a medical student which means you are no longer invisible, or, at best, ancillary.
Two months ago, I woke up one morning at 5:30 a.m., as usual. I played my gym motivation playlist in the shower, ate oatmeal for breakfast, and headed out the door, as usual. I swore at the car that swerved into the lane in front of me without signaling, as usual. An hour later, I pre-rounded on one of my favorite patients, a man with wide, childlike eyes who had a great deal of difficulty expressing his feelings.
The faint glow that is the light at the end of the tunnel hits my face as I realize that intern year is almost over. One would think that having been through the personal loss I have — losing two beloved older brothers at a young age — that intern year would be more than manageable. Yet this past year has been, for me, a chaotic roller coaster ride.
Neurology resident physician Nita Chen, MD journals through her first year of residency in her graphic medicine column, Pocket Doodles: My First Year as a Physician.
The hospital is a stage and rounding is the show. It’s a daily performance, a dance of sorts, that takes place each morning on the floors. The performers congregate outside a patient room.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Brigham and Women's Hospital
I am a PGY-1 psychiatry resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a Class of 2018 graduate of the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. I'm a Los Angeles girl, born and raised. In continuing to pursue creative endeavors, and in working to engage my classmates in the arts, I hope to show people that creative expression can help to keep burnout at bay and help to keep humanism alive in medicine.
