How Can I Get Enough Sleep During Med School?

Question:

Sometimes I can't sleep, and other times I'm afraid to sleep because of the amount of work that I have to do. How do I fit in quality sleep during medical school?

Response from Graham Walker, MD Resident, Emergency Medicine, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY

Sleeping well -- or at least enough -- is a challenge for medical students and even for physicians long after they've finished a grueling residency. If it's not the long hours, it's a late call in the middle of the night or the tossing and turning while you worry about a patient you saw on the previous day. At the same time, not sleeping well sets you up for a rotten next day filled with brain fog and the mistitration of caffeine. One of the most frustrating things is knowing that you need to sleep but feeling wide awake. What are we to do?

OverCompetitive Medical Students

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Introduction
Most medical students are well accustomed to competition. During bedside teaching, it's almost inevitable that one keen student will blurt out the answers to questions directed at others. But what happens when friendly competition turns nasty?

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Forensic Medicine

I have recently attended a National Medical Student's Conference in UP Manila and among the top speaker is Dr. Raquel Fortun. She talked about Forensic Medicine and being only one of the two Forensic Pathologists in the country. The topic and the specialty is only emerging as the practice is not formally recognized and institutionalized in the Philippines. I have learned a lot from her and was inspired to share the tidbits and facts about this road less travelled.

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Forensic pathology is a sub-specialty of histopathology, and is concerned with the application of pathological principles to the investigation of the medico-legal aspects of death.

Forensic pathologists are medically trained, specialized, qualified doctors who perform autopsies (postmortem examinations) on those who have died suddenly, unexpectedly, or as a result of trauma or poisoning.

The forensic investigation of death is a multi-disciplinary activity, involving the collaboration between pathologists, crime scene investigators (CSIs), forensic scientists, and other specialists, such as anthropologists, entomologists, odontologists (dentists) and many other experts.

Typhoid Fever

Typhoid fever, also known as enteric fever, is a potentially fatal multisystemic illness caused primarily by Salmonella typhi. The protean manifestations of typhoid fever make this disease a true diagnostic challenge. The classic presentation includes fever, malaise, diffuse abdominal pain, and constipation. Untreated, typhoid fever is a grueling illness that may progress to delirium, obtundation, intestinal hemorrhage, bowel perforation, and death within one month of onset. Survivors may be left with long-term or permanent neuropsychiatric complications.

GI Tuberculosis

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Each year, tuberculosis (TB) results in the death of 3 million people globally. In 2000-2020, an estimated 1 billion people will be infected, 200 million people will become sick, and 35 million will die from TB, if control is not strengthened.

Overall, one third of the world's population is infected with the TB bacillus, but not all infected individuals have clinical disease. The bacteria cause the disease when the immune system is weakened, as in older patients and in patients who are HIV positive. The control of TB has been challenging because of the natural history of the disease and the varying pattern in which it manifests in different groups.

Syphilis

Syphilis is an infectious venereal disease caused by the spirocheteTreponema pallidum. Syphilis is transmissible by sexual contact with infectious lesions, from mother to fetus in utero, via blood product transfusion, and occasionally through breaks in the skin that come into contact with infectious lesions. If untreated, it progresses through 4 stages: primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary.