All in Just Another Day

The Pepsi Center Blew Up

It’s the first day of my first ER rotation as an intern. I had endured months on Medicine, Neurosurgery and the Medical ICU and I am finally home, back in the ER. I am hoping that today will be a somewhat slow day so that I can ease my way back into the swing of things. As I walk around the department I begin to notice that everyone is moving around frantically. I find the senior resident. Without saying a word, he hands me a vest that says physician. "What’s going on?" I ask him. He looks at me and chuckles. The Pepsi Center blew up...

Best, Wang Shi Kai Email 1 Part 2

In this edition of the Physician Grind Dr. Wang Shi Kai describes the drastically different hospitals he works at in China. The first is a private hospital, where patients expect immediate, top quality and specialized service. The second is a public hospital where the waiting room is full of patients and chaos is the norm.  To switch back and forth between these two completely different environments requires the doctor to be able to flex and adapt quickly.  

Class of 2009

It was June 2005 and I was up early in the morning as always, but this morning had a special breath to it. I was going to drop off my husband and son that night at LAX airport as they headed to New York on a red eye flight. My son had an appointment with a faculty member, the same day they arrived, regarding getting him off the wait list of the medical school he had applied to.