WORCESTER MEDICINE
COVID-19 Part 3 The Company of Birds in Social Isolation Continued to the Wachusett Mountain and trails. The Burncoat Pond in Spencer and the Eagle Lake in Holden are among the other sanctuaries in this region that host migratory waterfowl during spring and fall. The Mass Audubon Society frequently organizes bird walks and programs to observe ongoing research such as banding techniques used to study the migration of birds. Amidst this wealth of birding opportunities, you can imagine my excitement when I found out about my residency mentor’s (Dr. Joel Popkin) fervor for birding. I have especially enjoyed his lectures due to our shared interest in the humanities and one of my favorite parts is the pictures from his birding expeditions he often includes. When I expressed my interest in writing this piece, he shared with me Dr. Joshua Schor’s perspective* in the New England Journal of Medicine on fighting burnout with birding. Dr. Schor beautifully articulates my own long-harbored opinion – how birding is much akin to the art of diagnostic medicine. Both require an unwearied observation of the physical and the behavioral in discerning the answer, be it the bird’s beak or the bird-beak sign. It is thus no wonder that a good number of birding enthusiasts happen to be physicians, as my interactions with the birding community have revealed, both back home in India and over the digital sphere. Within or outside of medicine, the pandemic has given us a chance to rediscover the outdoors. It has left nature cleaner and clearer, inviting wildlife to venture out in areas previously considered hostile territory. Whether it is the domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) out on a saunter in the neighborhood, or the dapper cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) berry-hunting in the local park, the company of birds can be a stimulating way to socially isolate. + *Joshua Schor. When Sparks Fly — Or How Birding Beat My Burnout. N Engl J Med 380;11. March 14, 2019:997-999 Parul Sarwal, MD is a final-year internal medicine resident at Saint Vincent Hospital. After graduating from Kasturba Medical College in India in 2015, she completed a research fellowship at Mass General Hospital before moving to Worcester for residency. She is looking to pursue a career in gastroenterology and medical editing. Having led editorial ventures in high school, medical school, and then her research training, she is excited to continue her commitment to writing through Worcester Medicine as a resident representative.
COVID-19
Part 3
Diving Headfirst: Perspectives on Entering the Clinic in the Time of COVID-19 Sheikh Moinul Hannah Swartz
sheikh moinul:
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arly May marked a period of great uncertainty for many rising third-year medical students at UMass. The COVID-19 pandemic ensured that a rapidly evolving set of rules were being delineated on an almost-daily basis, leaving many students to refresh their Outlook inboxes at the same frequency as their Reddit feeds. With STEP 1 exam cancellations, quarantine modifications, and clerkship start date changes happening at what could only be described as warp speed, life as it was once known had been completely upended. So, when the email announcing that clerkship experiences were set to start on June 1st, weeks before many other programs around the country were planning on doing the same, students expressed apprehension, uncertainty, and confusion. Every reassurance was made that extensive measures had been taken to maximize safety, but many students could still not fathom the prospect of being in a hospital during the throes of a global pandemic. However, many expressed excitement at the prospect of continuing education, fervently exhausted by the severe cabin fever that quarantine had brought to daily life. The revamped COVID-19 clerkship experience was, in many ways, as strange as one could imagine. For starters, medical students were not allowed to participate in the care of any COVID-19-positive patients, which was to be expected. What were once weekly roundtable case seminars had become Zoom sessions, final examinations had become anxiety-inducers at home, and OSCEs
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