Attending Physician Guest Writer
NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia/Cornell
Krutika Parasar Raulkar completed her Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia/Cornell, where she served during the pandemic. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2012 and attended Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where she was elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society and received distinctions in Medical Education and Community Service. An exercise enthusiast, she has run three marathons and enjoys a myriad of sports/fitness activities. Her first book, Exercise as Medicine, was published by Wild Brilliance Press in 2018. The same year, Dr. Raulkar was featured on the Dr. Oz show for her care of Montel Williams after he suffered a stroke and received rehabilitation at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Following residency, Dr. Raulkar moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband and children, her lifelong partners in health and happiness.
In 2020, she published her second book, COVID-19: Inside the Global Epicenter, featuring New York City health care providers’ experiences from the peak of the pandemic.
I didn’t start out thinking I was going to be a physician. I was going to be an actor. I committed myself to a life of emotional expression, artistic fulfillment and likely poverty, and pursued an undergraduate conservatory degree in theater, which I quickly found is one of the most nebulous forms of education one can obtain.
“You could help us with our diversity efforts. If you came here, you could be a part of building up our diversity program.” Who said I wanted to help with your diversity efforts? Why hasn’t it been built up already?
As the COVID-19 pandemic stretched into the late spring months, the ACGME made the recommendation to hold all residency and fellowship recruitment for the 2021 Match cycle virtually. At University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, preparations began.
My own experience has felt a bit like wading through a swamp of hysteria, grief, misinformation and lack of leadership (locally and globally) while attempting to find clarity in the mire. This has unintentionally prompted me to re-evaluate my own toolkit of coping mechanisms and the ways in which I can maintain my own semblance of sanity. Whether you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, scattered or even just bored, listless, or helpless. I hope that one or more of these cognitive approaches can be helpful.
The Collective for Resident Rights at Yale wrote the following list of demands, under our rights as medical trainees, related to the COVID era. It is time to organize. Our collective voice cannot be silenced.
In medical school, I was taught to sit at eye level when speaking to patients, ask how they would prefer to be addressed, and ask open-ended questions to allow them to express themselves. I learned to interject with “That must be really difficult for you,” or “I can only imagine how that makes you feel,” as a way to show empathy and foster better connection with patients.
I was appointed to do the morning shift in the COVID ward of our respected hospital. The unit is a negative pressure area and, to us doctors, it is comforting as we embark on the Icarus flight.
Content warning: The following article is about sexual assault and rape. I think it is time to be honest with myself and the world and say that I am a survivor of sexual assault, not a victim. I have taken the power away from my abuser and given it back to myself by speaking out.
When I first met Rita, she didn’t make things easy. She fired a barrage of questions at me, punctuating her litany with the dreaded blow to every resident’s ego — “Are you a student?” — before slouching back on her bed, sweat glistening on her gray-streaked temples as though she had run a marathon.
It was a beautiful late winter Sunday, and my husband and I decided to drive to Plum Island, in the quaint sea town of Newburyport just north of Boston, for some bird-watching and ocean views. I wondered how my sister-in-law was doing — her wedding was scheduled in just seven days, and she and her fiancé had already been faced with tough decisions because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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.
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.
Fellow Physician Contributing Writer
University of New Mexico Hospital
Dr. Rebecca Williams-Karnesky has completed three clinical years as a General Surgery resident and is currently in her second year as a Surgical Education Research Fellow in the Department of General Surgery at the University of New Mexico. Her current research examines the intersectionality of surgeon wellness, engagement in teaching, and learner mistreatment. She is also interested in understanding how mindfulness and compassion practices can be used to increase personal resilience and change culture in surgery.
