The PNWU Health Blog offers insight and first-hand accounts of life here at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences.
It includes contributions from current and former PNWU medical students, physicians and various members of an ever-expanding community aimed at highlighting care for the rural and underserved. If you have any questions, comments, concerns or ideas, or if you’d like to pitch a blog idea of your own, please contact us at publicity@pnwu.edu.
Medical school is hard.
It’s physically and mentally demanding and, as a medical student, it’s hard to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Through my experiences with medical school, however, I’ve learned an invaluable lesson: there is life outside of the book pages and lecture notes that fill our minds.
Read MoreFew people are lucky enough to be completely vulnerable.
I bet you reread that sentence. Don’t feel bad; before I became a medical school student, I would have had the same confused expression on my face as you likely do right now.
As a society, we associate the word “vulnerable” with weakness, helplessness, and inadequacy. Most of us put on a façade of absolute strength every day. We hide our insecurities, struggles and stresses to a certain degree. Why?
Read MoreThe Mariners win! The Mariners win!
Oh how I wish we could say that... At least we had fun!
Read MoreI’ve been struggling a lot recently with keeping track of who I am.
This might sound dramatic - it’s not. Becoming a medical student has created the challenge of maintaining a sense of “me” like nothing I’ve ever experience before.
On top of my academics, I’ve become swept up in the excitement of being involved in a myriad of clubs, volunteering, research, and student government activities. While all of this has been incredibly rewarding. I seem to keep running into the same question at the end of my busy day: how do I stay Sarah?
Read MoreI am wasting the time of the emergency room staff. Please stop me.
This is not the blog post I intended to write. Instead, I intended to write about the how emergency rooms should be used for LIFE THREATENING emergencies only.
I wanted to talk to you about the sniffles of children, the coughs and wheezes of heavy smokers and the ever-urgent complaint of “I need a refill” that echo in emergency rooms across the country.
Read MoreThat morning was frigid -- the type of bitter cold that reminded you that winter was just around the corner. Our Emergency Department (ED) received the dispatch that a Jane Doe was en route. A couple on their morning hike in the foothills had found her. She was wearing cut off jean shorts and a blue tank top. She arrived with a paramedic on top of her performing CPR. She was purple -- so purple that she looked almost cartoon-like.
Read MoreI loved growing up with a doctor. It always gave me a sense of security, like if anything went wrong, he’d know what to do. My father was, and still is, an amazing man. He always put on a strong face and was there for my family when we needed him. He was our foundation, and he never let on if anything was troubling or not well within himself.
Read MoreDiscussing anything about sexual health at the doctor’s office is always awkward. I had been seeing my family doctor for almost 14 years before we fell into the topic, and when it finally came around, I had no idea how to react. I hadn’t even told any of my family that I was gay, let alone my doctor. And to make things worse, I deeply respected him; he was one of the primary people who inspired me to want to be a doctor in the first place. I didn’t want to let him down.
Read MoreAs I shook out the cobwebs and looked up from the splintered door that I had been slammed through, I saw his expression change. Tears began to pour from his eyes as he stared down at me; at what he had done to me. I’d never imagined that I would have been treated like that, and right then I knew that I had to leave.
Read MoreIt all started in Valdez, Alaska, where I was employed as a deckhand on a salmon fishing boat...
Taking advantage of a long-awaited day off -- I had spent the entire previous day rocking back and forth on the boat -- I decided to sleep in. When I awoke I hopped on my bike and headed around to the other side of Valdez harbor to have a shower at a fish processing plant that purchased the fish we caught. With the exhaustion -- and salmon scales -- of the previous day washed away, I climbed back aboard my bike feeling fresh.
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