While attending the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Nammalwar said, she was lucky to be with fellow students who were “warriors” for social and racial justice, which sharpened her understanding of some of the nation’s social problems. Shruthi Nammalwar, a new resident in general surgery, said the Black Lives Matter movement has resonated with her. Caron also was one of the NYU volunteers who opted to finish medical school slightly ahead of schedule so she could help treat COVID-19 patients at the height of the crisis in New York. Along with working at a free medical clinic serving many low-income and undocumented immigrant patients during medical school, Caron also participated in research on gender-based violence.

In fact, social justice concerns helped Caron choose to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. “These protests are inseparable from the start of my career,” said Jayne Caron, MD, a new resident in obstetrics and gynecology who attended medical school at New York University. Even as the nation struggles with the pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority patients and raised the issue of health equity, Americans are reckoning with calls for social justice from protestors outraged by police killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd in Minneapolis. Residents are keenly aware that we are living through a possible inflection point in American history. For example, orientation, with its customary meet-and-greets, was turned into a mostly online exercise.ĬOVID-19, Noah noted, isn’t the only big issue on the minds of the new arrivals. The COVID-19 pandemic first disrupted the final months of many of the new residents’ medical school educations, and now is altering their experiences at the medical center.

Even in normal times, residents would be making “a big jump” from medical school, when “ all patient care they are involved in is reviewed by multiple other physicians,” said Mark Noah, MD, Cedar-Sinai’s a ssociate dean for Medical Education. Today Turner is one of the 80 first-year residents just getting started at Cedars-Sinai and facing vastly greater challenges than previous classes of residents.

“I was the only one who listened to her,” Turner joked. Turner’s grandmother influenced even his choice of a medical specialty as he intends to become a geriatrician. His brothers went in other directions professionally, but Turner fulfilled his grandmother’s dream a month ago, receiving his medical degree from the Charles R. Then she’d whisper into their ears, “I want you to become a doctor.” When Maurice Turner, MD, was a young boy growing up in the San Diego area, his maternal grandmother would tuck him and his two older brothers into bed.

Ink & Arrows by Shruthi Viswanathan