not again, not again (and again) 

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Today was supposed to be a good day.

I woke up around 8 and that felt too early. Anything before ten these days feels ‘too early’ but then I remembered that I was late to clinical skills last session and so I got myself out of bed – I thought ‘it’s okay, I can sleep in tomorrow.’

I got dressed, warmed up my coffee and woke up hubs so I could get a ride to campus. Today we were doing a male genitourinary exam and digital rectal exam. Most practicing physicians have probably done hundreds of these exams but being a medical student, I obviously felt nervous. I also felt really grateful to the standardized patients who allow us access to their bodies so that we can learn to be better healers for our future patients, who allow us to perform exams that most would shy away from even when there is something wrong.

The majority of the first year of medical school, you learn about how humans work. You learn about the various mechanisms that allow our tickers to tick, our liver to flush out toxins, how the brain controls so many of those mechanisms. And once you feel like you’re finally getting a grasp on how we work, you get to second year and learn all the ways that we don’t. You learn about the pathology of each organ system and you start to wonder… how are any of us still alive and functioning? Life and living start feeling miraculous. And other than the bouts of ‘med student syndrome,’ (where we start thinking we have any disease we’re studying at the time) you really start to appreciate good health more than you ever have.

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hi-def warmth

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Every year we have Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house and the past couple times we’ve had gatherings at her house, it rains! We were joking around that we’ve solved the drought – we just need to keep having parties at her place. Someone call Governor Brown!

Below you can see the rain soaked tables. Thankfully the covers from her previous party were still up so the rest of the tables were nice and dry.

My cousins did an awesome job with the decor, as usual! I loved all the fall colors in everything – so many autumn vibes. It was pretty chilly because of the rain but that actually made it feel more like Thanksgiving.

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attitude of gratitude

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Hope you’re all having a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones! To those of you who may not be able to celebrate surrounded by love, for whatever reason, know that you’re in my thoughts and I’m sending so much love your way.

While we’re celebrating this day with delicious food and surrounded by love, I hope that we can decolonize the tradition of Thanksgiving by remembering the Native Americans who lost their homes and their lives. Thanksgiving was actually declared a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln as an effort to bring the country together during the tensions of the civil war. The story of the ‘Indians and the Pilgrims’ was not associated with the holiday until the 1890s. And the story of them eating together peacefully and celebrating this newfound friendship is completely false – the Native Americans living on this land were displaced and killed (either directly or by the European diseases the pilgrims brought with them). This video by MTV does a pretty great job of summarizing the issues with the ‘history’ of Thanksgiving. And if you’d like more details about how this tradition came about and would like to see facts to debunk the stories that we’re told in grade school, this article does a pretty rad job. So while we celebrate and think about what we’re grateful for this year, let’s keep those who suffered at the hands of the European immigrants in our thoughts and prayers and remember to be grateful for their sacrifice.

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med sisters series: Amenah

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The Med Sisters Series is a series of interviews of women in various stages of their careers in medicine: pre-med, medical school, residency, fellowship and attending physicians. As women, I believe we face unique challenges within any field, medicine included. As I’ve moved along on this journey, I truly believe one of the biggest support systems we have is each other. Society works so hard to pit women against each other in every situation you can think of but, as feminists, I think it’s so important to combat that urge to try to ‘beat each other out.’ There’s room for all of us on the other side of the glass ceiling. The goal of this series is to shed light on the challenges women face in the field of medicine and how they achieve a work-life balance that works for them. This blog has always been a place for me to share the realities of this journey, both the highs and lows. I thought of this series as a way to share the perspectives of the other extraordinary women on this journey too.

Amenah is a fourth year medical student in Karachi, Pakistan and is currently doing her rotations in Washington DC. You can follow her journey through medicine and travels through her beautiful Instagram account.

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flowy florals

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This weekend I attended a fundraising banquet for the Council of American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles Chapter with hubs and the in laws. CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. I’m going to do a full post on this sometime soon, but Islamophobia has had a really large impact on the Muslim community. This article perfectly explains why it’s actually a public health issue and that’s why organizations like CAIR are so incredibly important. 

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med sisters series: Fran, OMS3

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The Med Sisters Series is a series of interviews of women in various stages of their careers in medicine: pre-med, medical school, residency, fellowship and attending physicians. As women, I believe we face unique challenges within any field, medicine included. As I’ve moved along on this journey, I truly believe one of the biggest support systems we have is each other. Society works so hard to pit women against each other in every situation you can think of but, as feminists, I think it’s so important to combat that urge to try to ‘beat each other out.’ There’s room for all of us on the other side of the glass ceiling. The goal of this series is to shed light on the challenges women face in the field of medicine and how they achieve a work-life balance that works for them. This blog has always been a place for me to share the realities of this journey, both the highs and lows. I thought of this series as a way to share the perspectives of the other extraordinary women on this journey too.

Franziska is a third year medical student and aspiring obstetrician who lives with her boyfriend and adorable dogs and cat! You can follow her journey and learn about her wonderful sense of style on her blog and Instagram.

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muslims on screen

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In my previous post about Mindy Kaling’s book Why Not Me? I shared my excitement about seeing a South Asian female lead in a mainstream TV show because it really isn’t something that happens often. So imagine my excitement when I heard about Quantico – a show casting not only a South Asian female lead but also a hijabi Muslim woman!

The premise of the show is the following: nine (or so) months after they arrive at Quantico, an FBI training academy, the South Asian student Alex Parish (played by the actress Priyanka Chopra) is being framed – allegedly by one of her fellow classmates – for a bombing at Grand Central. The show presents both a timeline in the present and periodically flashes back to the students’ time at Quantico to give insight into who may actually be responsible for the terrorist attack.

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book review: Why Not Me?

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I feel like I’ve always had this love/hate relationship with Mindy Kaling (okay, hate is a strong word – let’s just say that I had really high expectations for her and sometimes felt let down). My first real exposure to her was her first book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) and I absolutely loved it. It’s been a few years since I’ve read the book (and I’ve become much more critically thinking in that time) so I’m not sure if I’d feel the same way now.

After reading the book, I started watching The Mindy Project and also had a sort of love/hate relationship with the show. As a South Asian woman myself, I was so excited to have someone who looked like me be a lead in a show. In the show, Mindy Lahiri is an eccentric and hilarious OB-GYN and I loved that. But I felt irked by the lack of people of color on the show, particularly when it came to Dr. Lahiri’s love interests. Knowing that Mindy Kaling understood the lack of diversity in Hollywood, I had this really intense expectation of her show to be full of people of color and people of ‘normal’ sizes. And every time her character dated a white man, I felt profoundly disappointed – like my older sister had just stabbed me in the back (yes, I really was this dramatic). I even stopped watching her show for a while.

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tunes blarin’ 

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Finally took hubby to his first concert tonight! Turns out he’s not a fan but it’s all good because now he knows. I think it’s important to at least try something before you decide you dislike it. It was kind of a ‘belated’ birthday present for me but mostly it was a night we were both free and a we found a decent local show.  

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med sisters series: Racquel, MS3

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The Med Sisters Series is a series of interviews of women in various stages of their careers in medicine: pre-med, medical school, residency, fellowship and attending physicians. As women, I believe we face unique challenges within any field, medicine included. As I’ve moved along on this journey, I truly believe one of the biggest support systems we have is each other. Society works so hard to pit women against each other in every situation you can think of but, as feminists, I think it’s so important to combat that urge to try to ‘beat each other out.’ There’s room for all of us on the other side of the glass ceiling. The goal of this series is to shed light on the challenges women face in the field of medicine and how they achieve a work-life balance that works for them. This blog has always been a place for me to share the realities of this journey, both the highs and lows. I thought of this series as a way to share the perspectives of the other extraordinary women on this journey too.

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Racquel is a third year medical student in the US and lives with her husband and her adorable dog Melo. You can read more about her journey on her blog and Instagram!

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