Cross-cultural Experience Archives - Page 5 of 7

Home > Journeys in Medicine Home > Cross-cultural Experience > Page 5

Journeys User4June 9, 2021May 27, 2021Cross-cultural Experience, My StoryCanada, COVID-19, Emergency Medicine, Ohio, PGY1

Navigating the Slopes of Intern Year

By Dr. E Chin Mak

I’m sitting in my residency library on a gloomy spring afternoon during my trauma surgery rotation. I stare out the window at the shedding cherry blossom trees, and I reflect on how the last ten months flew by. As I’m waiting for a trauma alert to be paged out, another chest tube, another bedside thoracotomy, I think back to where I was exactly one year ago today. I was packing up my bags in Ireland, prepared to move across the pond to a new country, ready for my first full-time clinical training experience and to start a new life. Little did I know how much I would learn in medicine, and in life.

Continue reading “Navigating the Slopes of Intern Year”

Journeys User4April 27, 2021Cross-cultural Experience, My StoryGeorgia, PGY1, Surgery, The Bahamas

Improving Patient Care Through Cultural Diversity

By Dr. Kevin Carroll II

I am a proud Bahamian native and a fully Caribbean-trained international medical graduate. I am also a newly matched categorical general surgery resident. Achieving my dream of matching to a general surgery residency was not an easy feat. Prior to joining my current program, I had no U.S. clinical experience. After being recognized for some accomplishments in a surgical department in my home country and acquiring my Membership of The Royal College of Surgeons, I decided to pursue my goal of training in the United States. I worried that my prior achievements would not be enough. I believed in myself, so I took some risks and I networked extremely hard. After spending a preliminary year in general surgery at a program located in Georgia, I accomplished my dream. My story is proof that determination makes it possible; to those who have doubts, don’t give up! My journey to this point has been difficult and I am so grateful to the Exchange Visitor Program for making this opportunity a possibility.

Continue reading “Improving Patient Care Through Cultural Diversity”

Journeys User4March 10, 2021February 25, 2021Cross-cultural Experience, My StoryCOVID-19, North Dakota, Pakistan, PGY4, Psychiatry

You’ll Never Walk Alone

By Dr. Ahmad Khan

Living the “American Dream” was a phrase I heard a lot while growing up because many of my relatives were settled in the USA. During medical school, I had made up my mind to pursue psychiatry as a preferred specialty. After making a thorough comparison of psychiatry training in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the USA, I decided to aim for training in the United States.

Continue reading “You’ll Never Walk Alone”

Journeys User4November 4, 2020October 29, 2020Cross-cultural Experience, My Story, Words of WisdomCOVID-19, India, Missouri, Neurology, PGY4

Doctors with Borders

By Dr. Uttara Koul

The past eight months have been a summation of the five stages of grief:

- - - - Stage 1: Denial – there’s a viral outbreak? Hmm. It won’t reach us.
        
        Stage 2: Anger – why aren’t people taking the lockdown strictly? Why is everyone hoarding toilet paper?
        
        Stage 3: Bargaining – a vaccine will be released any day now, right?
        
        Stage 4: Depression – all social engagements are postponed indefinitely. So many people have lost their lives! This is heartbreaking!
        
        Stage 5: Acceptance – this is the new normal.

Continue reading “Doctors with Borders”

Journeys User4August 25, 2020September 8, 2021Cross-cultural Experience, My StoryCOVID-19, Family Medicine, Ohio, PGY4, Preventative Medicine, Saudi Arabia

Engineering Medicine Inside Out

By Dr. Wail Yar

I grew up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, thousands of miles away in the Middle East. I went to high school with a dream that I would become a petroleum engineer. I never thought that I would be a physician; I was scared from seeing blood, and I was afraid to touch a patient. When I graduated from high school, I applied to the best scholarship program in the country, and I got accepted to study petroleum engineering abroad. At the same time, I applied to King Abdulaziz University College of Medicine in Saudi Arabia, because it is one of the best schools in the country. I applied, not because I was forced to do so by my family, but I did it to prove that I could be a doctor, although at that time I didn’t want to be one.

Continue reading “Engineering Medicine Inside Out”