PHYSICIAN-IN-TRAINING/MEDICAL STUDENT CATEGORY
2016 RICHARD SPEAR, MD, MEMORIAL ESSAY CONTEST
The urge to browse returns still again when wondering about
that fellowship. Alternatively, information can be gathered from
anonymous bloggers of most specialties who willingly write about
their lives with varying degrees of depth on public blogs, some
even sponsored by their own residency institutions. Depending on
the author’s level of anonymity, we may find ourselves reading on
any number of topics, ranging from the superficial - like dress and
professionalism - to the more personal, which can feel like modernized snippets from The House of God. Speaking of blogs and
The House of God, after we land that coveted residency position
and start developing a little cynicism of our own, there’s always
gomerblog.com for much needed comic relief.
co-residents one-on-one, not from what boils down to a computer
screen, which houses news-feeds we flip through endlessly. Therefore, let’s share the funny and the not-so-funny with each other,
face-to-face.
In the end, we may just find ourselves experiencing more of the
positive side of medicine, gathering a more abundant supply of
knowledge, humor, and most importantly, gaining compassion for
both patients and ourselves.
Kara Curry, DO, is a third year psychiatry resident at the University
of Louisville Hospital.
Conversely, the blogs KevinMD.com and mommd.com, which
both have many different physician contributors, take a more serious look at some of the most pressing issues in medicine and
how others, of varying levels of experience in the field, have dealt
with these. That’s the beauty of social media—learning viewpoints
of others from a diverse array of backgrounds and experiences,
which may have never been expressed or accessible outside of the
virtual world to which we have all grown accustomed. Some of the
most painful subjects are discussed there as well. These are ones
mistakenly still kept secret amongst colleagues, such as physician
burnout and suicide.
In November 2015, KevinMD.com posted the article, “We lose a
medical school full of physicians every year to suicide: An interview
with Dr. Pamela Wible.” The post explored the continued need for
supportive training environments and what was speculated to be
the current state of affairs. So, in effect, a social media platform
reminded us of what it cannot provide—the emotional reactivity
and human connection we gather from listening and talking with
colleagues, in person. A sort of emotional reciprocity can only be
gathered from sharing our own unique stories with advisors and
The Richard Spear, MD, Memorial Essay Contest is a yearly writing competition hosted by the Greater Louisville Medical Society. Dr. Richard Spear, a respected Louisville general surgeon, passed away in 2007 and left
GLMS a bequest to fund an annual essay contest. To view the Richard Spear, MD, Memorial Essay Contest
archives, visit members.kyma.org/scripts/4disapi.dll/4DCGI/cms/review.html?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=336&MenuKey=glms.
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE