An interesting perspective on studying, if not medical practice and indeed life itself, from third-year medical student Ohad Oren, from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

Admit it or not, medical students can be strictly divided into two groups, when comparing their self-style predictions. There are the Nobel Laureates to-be, who always seem not to appreciate their academic abilities as they really deserve to. And then there is the confident “surely-another-A” type, whose constant explanation for their lower-than-anticipated results is a probable miscalculation in points counting.

You may guess that I am some kind of exam-grades forecaster. To be honest, in my case it is not as straightforward as that. My self-grade evaluation varies roughly as a function of the grades-rating of the student with whom I am exchanging words. Meaning that his or her average yearly score is somehow spontaneously translated by my latent senses into a unique scale of numbers. And it definitely provides fertile ground for further discussion. Read the rest of this entry »

Tushar Patel from Tufts University School of Medicine, USA, recently revisited an area of rural India after an initial visit more than two decades ago. There remain many parallels in relation to poverty and health inequity…

‘Even now, I can still see her.  Her face is disfigured, swollen in some parts and normal in others.  My cousin’s body glows red from the fluorescent lights shining on her rash.  There is a hole in her cheek. She cries, yet smiles in my presence and I smile in return. I remember little of the time I spent with Priti on her farm in India.  Yet, her last days are imprinted in my memories.  At the age of twelve, Priti died of an allergic reaction to penicillin. Her chicken pox and high fever should have been treated without penicillin.

To this day Priti reminds me that life is a precious gift. 23 years later, recollections of Priti and a research opportunity offered by Dr Christine Wanke brought me back to one of India’s hospitals, Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE). This small non-profit hospital treats ten thousand HIV patients.  Providing patient care in their 16 bed hospital showed me the complexities faced by India’s destitute. Read the rest of this entry »

David Biles is a medical student from the University of Bristol, UK, though is currently involved in an internship at the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. Here is the first of hopefully several blogs that Dave will file for TheLancetStudent.com - this first one about a demonstration in Cape Town last weekend about gender violence in South Africa.

The cries went up, AMANDALA! (Power) AWETHU! (To the people) VIVA TAC VIVA! PHANTSI ERAPE! (Down with Rape). Hundreds were protesting against gender based violence in the heart of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township, last weekend.

I have just started volunteering for the protest organisers, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).

So, last Saturday morning I found myself in the middle of the passionate and noisy protesters.

Placards read “Real men don’t rape” and “Hands off our children”. The crowd of adults and school children loudly sung adapted anti-apartheid struggle songs. If you have ever seen “Amandala”, the film about the power of song and dance in apartheid, you might know how rousing it can be.

Despite the liveliness of the protest the issue is sobering. South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world for a country not at war. Over 55,000 cases of rape are reported to the police ever year. Khayelitsha, home to 500,000 people, has some of the highest levels in the country. However most rapes never get reported to the police because of fears of retaliation, lack of faith in the justice system, economic dependance on the perpetrator or feelings of shame about the event.  Estimates say the incidence of rape is 20 times higher than reported cases. And this is not just adults; shockingly 41% of rape victims are under the age of 14.

Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting perspective on the relationship between art and medicine from rachel Pope in Be’er-sheva, Israel.

‘These last few weeks I have not been able to submit any blog entries because I have had too many things going on outside of class. All of the activities were well worth the time, though, and all of them, were unintentionally related to art in medicine.

“Art doesn’t give answers; art asks questions,” was the theme of my English class the first year of high school when our teacher decided to incorporate modern art into our literature and writing analysis training. In this vein, we learned that art can be an uninhibited expression of life experiences that can be used to show us the world through an individual’s unique perspective, and sometimes more deliberately, used to challenge the way we see the world. It’s easy to understand therefore, how physicians and physicians in training who work in fulfilling but also challenging and at times frustrating circumstances might have several experiences that may evoke a need to express their questions through various media.

In the last few months, I was fortunate to a have few chances to share some of my own questions as well as learn from others in my medical community. In March, a few of us at MSIH put on a theater production of “A Memory, a Rant, a Monologue, and a Prayer,” the 10^th anniversary edition of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, which focused on the seriousness of violence that persists in our world today and the need to prevent and stop it. In this piece of art, 12 medical students and community members were able to pass on the stories of women and men from around the world who needed to express the violence they had either survived or witnessed in order to process it themselves as well as raise awareness against it. This piece asked us, “Why do we continue to hurt each other?” and “How can we as physicians prevent and recognize violence?” Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone - just to let you know that our esteemed Editor Rhona is away for the next few weeks. So for the month of May-and it is truly wonderfully a warm and sunny month of May so far here in London-the site will not be quite as active as usual. However we are still keen to hear from guest bloggers, so please e-mail student@lancet.com if you have something to say on an important health issue. We are keeping eyes and ears open on the appalling situation in Burma following the cyclone on May 3; if you are in that part of the world and can enlighten us on this tragic event, do please get in touch.

Articles for the site and issues relating to peer review will be put on hold pending Rhona’s return at the end of the month.

Many thanks, and look forward to hearing from you soon.

In Rhona’s absence I’m posting this enthusiastic blog contribution from Kelly Anderson from a lecture given yesterday at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

This evening, I had the good fortune of experiencing an extremely progressive commentary on medical student involvement in global health.

The inaugural Hungry for Change Gala at the University of Western Ontario aimed to foster increased global consciousness and draw attention to growing disparities in wealth and resource allocation worldwide. Azad Mashari, a fourth year UWO medical student, delivered a poignant speech that illustrated the need for deep reflection regarding medical student involvement in the delivery of medical care in resource-poor settings. He began with a statement too rarely articulated by contemporary global health experts: “Our potential to harm others is rarely as great as when we are trying to help them.”

Given the rise in expert discussion on ‘medical tourism’ and global health ethics, I am always surprised (and pleased) to see the most progressive views on global health collaboration, community-based approaches and social accountability come from students themselves.  More and more, we are concerned about the impact of our international electives on individuals, health systems and global health equity. Read the rest of this entry »

Aditi Das has been very busy on our behalf. Not only did she go to the Conflict and Catastrophe Forum’s medicine overseas event for us last week but yesterday, she went to a very high profile conference at the Royal College of Physicians on Global Health: Current Issues, Future Trends and Foreign Policy  and reports back for us here-RhonaYesterday I attended a conference held by the Royal College of Physicians, London entitled, Global Health: Current Issues, Future Trends and Foreign Policy’. I entered with high expectations which were thankfully not in the least bit dashed. This was an excellent yet tiring day that left me feeling enthused, educated and inspired.

For those of you who have not visited the Royal College of Physicians in London, it is truly a remarkable building.  As you enter, the high walls are laden with portraits of eminent doctors who have helped to shape the health care system that we are now part of today. Moreover, the library collections date back to 1518; an indicator of the rich historical underpinnings of this institution. Therefore, that the College decided to host a conference on Global Health is testament to the importance of this issue. This move also suggests that contemporary physicians are now starting to regard Global Health as an utmost priority rather than just a popular catch-phase. Read the rest of this entry »

As promised Leeds medical students, James Chan and Sunil Bhopal, tell us what happened at the pharma debate at Leeds University Medical School. A fantastic result I think! RhonaLots of debate at Leeds with Peter Mansfield (right) and Rory O’Connor (left)-photo by Lorraine Sue-Fern Yeung
What made 120 students stay late at University on a Friday evening last week? Well, Medsin-Leeds  and PharmAware Leeds  came together to put on a huge event, tackling a massive issue that managed to create a real buzz around the issue. The issue is that of pharmaceutical companies and their influence on doctor’s prescribing habits. To stimulate discussion and further exploration of this issue, the following motion was debated:

“The house believes the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry is detrimental to patient health”.

The event was introduced by Omar Jundi, PharmAware-Leeds co-coordinator. He explained that this is a large issue discussed by the profession and brought up often in medical journals etc. Four speakers, two for each side of the debate, had their say - and a lengthy, passionate question and answer session then ensued! Read the rest of this entry »

 James Matheson, the student representative of the Catastrophes and Conflict Forum at the The Royal Society of Medicine gives his take on last Friday’s Medicine Overseas event-RhonaPhoto from MSF
On 25 April, the Royal Society of Medicine in London hosted, ‘Medicine Overseas’, a one day event aimed at those with an interest in working in humanitarian medicine abroad. Speakers from international and non-governmental organisations were joined by educators and training organisations in order to introduce delegates to those people who could provide them with the necessary knowledge, skills and opportunities for work in the field.

The day, organised by the RSM’s Catastrophes and Conflict Forum highlighted some of the conflicts inherent in the way the humanitarian world does business and in the process of getting involved. Whilst all the speakers would have recommended getting involved in this challenging, rewarding and genuinely useful area of medicine, they also demonstrated it wasn’t easy. Read the rest of this entry »

Medical student, Aditi Das, reports on last Friday’s Conflict and Catastrophes Forum at the Royal Society of Medicine, London-RhonaPhoto from the ICRC
On Friday 25 April, the Conflict and Catastrophes Forum hosted a conference at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, entitled ‘Medicine Overseas’. This was a day long series of spectacular talks which aimed to provide an insight into the challenges, fears, hurdles and rewards of a career in humanitarian medicine. An impressive array of speakers from a range of diverse organisations including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Department for International Development (DFID), and Medecins du Monde (MdM), each provided unique perspectives of overseas medical careers. In particular, they illustrated the controversies that underlie humanitarian medicine, including whether organisations should remain neutral in conflict settings and how health workers can prevent doing more harm than good. Moreover, the remarkable turnout of young doctors and medical students within the audience reflected that humanitarian medicine is an important field that the doctors of tomorrow need to take an interest in. Read the rest of this entry »