#myVUSM
“Med students can’t be sidelined.” Lessons from volunteering during a pandemic.
Mar. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson This month marks a year since the start of the COVID-19 Volunteer Initiative, a drive that included over 300 student volunteers completing more than 2,350 volunteer hours. We sat down virtually with the med students who started it all: M4 Catie Havemann and G3 Thao Le. They share the lessons they learned...
Chapman mentor Dr. Clair and med students head initiative to change “Dixie Place” to “Vivien Thomas Way”
Feb. 22, 2021—by Emma Mattson This summer Chapman mentor Dr. Walter Clair and a group of med students headed an initiative to change the name of a street on VUMC’s campus from “Dixie Place” to “Vivien Thomas Way.” Per M1 Alex Lupi, who collaborated on the project, the initiative originated in VUSM learning communities in the weeks...
Meet the first matriculated graduate of the VUSM Short Pipeline: M1 Dominique Mosley
Feb. 15, 2021—by Emma Mattson Sometimes a chance conversation can change your path forever— or at least, that’s what happened in M1 Dominique Mosley’s story. Mosley attended Spelman College, a historically Black liberal arts college for women, located in Atlanta, GA. Early on as an undergraduate, Mosley had been interested in both engineering and medicine, but a...
Meet VUSM’s Newest Student Org: Chess Club!
Feb. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson Med student Colin White-Dzuro learned how to play chess as a kid, but he didn’t start playing in earnest until last year— March, to be exact. As the pandemic narrowed social possibilities across the country, White-Dzuro started looking for safe and socially distanced ways to connect with friends. Chess was the perfect...
VPIL Teamwork in the Time of COVID-19
Jan. 11, 2021—by Emma Mattson Not even a pandemic can stop interdisciplinary learning on VUSM’s campus. Take the Vanderbilt Program in Interprofessional Learning (or VPIL, for short), for example. Each year, around 40 VUSM students join this unique learning community to spend one afternoon a week doing hands-on work in clinics across Nashville, collaborating with students from...
M1 Harrison Thomas takes lead role in the mentoring program that brought him to VUSM
Nov. 17, 2020—by Emma Mattson When Harrison Thomas registered as a junior for a Vanderbilt pre-med mentoring program, he expected to learn about writing a strong personal statement. He expected to practice his interviewing skills. He expected to receive good advice through the whole pre-med process. What he didn’t expect was that two years later he would...
The Best of Both Worlds: How MSTPs Balance Life in Two Advising College Communities
Sep. 28, 2020—by Emma Mattson From Big-Little Reveal to College Cup, the four med school colleges get a lot of well-deserved publicity. But less attention gets paid to an equally crucial support system for our MD PhD students: the MSTP colleges. Maybe you’re an M2 student wondering if the transition to research will be terribly lonely. Maybe...
A Centennial Tribute: VUSM Grad Gordon Petty, MD (‘50) turns 100
Sep. 19, 2020—by Emma Mattson Gordon Petty, born September 19, 1920, celebrates his hundredth birthday this Saturday, September 19. His century of life is marked by medical excellence, exemplary service to his community, and unforgettable influence on all who meet him. Dr. Petty has lived through the Great Depression, a world war, the terms of 17 American...
VUSM alumni offer wellness advice for the residency interview season
Sep. 14, 2020—by Emma Mattson So, you’re finally here: the autumn of your fourth year. You’ve made it past block exams, board exams, countless clerkship and intern rotations. Now it’s time for the final milestones of med school: the residency interview season. Although interviews may look slightly different this fall, the essentials of the process have remained...
Meet the newly elected, first-year leaders
Sep. 8, 2020—by Emma Mattson We couldn’t be more excited to welcome the twelve new, first-year leaders on the Council of Class Officers (CCO). Besides generally representing the first-year class, these leaders will host virtual events, provide feedback on curriculum, and collaborate with other CCO leaders on VUSM-wide initiatives. Curious about your new representatives? We talked with...
4 tips for surviving your block exams, from our Students as Teachers experts
Aug. 31, 2020—by Emma Mattson Block exams present a new and exciting challenge during your clerkship year of med school, and we’ve gathered advice from five Students as Teachers experts about what, when, and how to effectively prepare for block exams. Here’s what they had to say! Choose your study resources wisely With so many study materials...
“You have more power to change the world than you think”: A physician’s role in the fight against misinformation
Aug. 25, 2020—by Emma Mattson “We all know more than we think we know about the current situation” Kathleen Montgomery, MD (VUSM ‘15) advises current med students, “and we can really be helpful.” Montgomery, who spent her residency and fellowship years in VUMC’s pathology department, made headlines this summer for a Facebook post she wrote in response...
Latino Medical Student Association leaders talk heritage, antiracism
Aug. 17, 2020—by Emma Mattson When you step on VUSM’s campus, you get to add a new facet to your identity: being a med student. But being a med student doesn’t mean you drop all the other parts of who you are. Anything but! Our culture of wellness at Vanderbilt recognizes that labelling someone a “med student”...
Turning your virtual med school interview into an opportunity
Aug. 12, 2020—by Emma Mattson “‘Unprecedented’ simply means it hasn’t happened before. So, ‘unprecedented’ begets ‘opportunity.’” These words of advice come from Donald Brady, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Health Sciences Education, and are especially applicable for med school applicants this fall, facing a round of virtual interviews. Transitioning med school interviews to a virtual format certainly...
Behind the Scenes: Tracing the 5-year history of our Social Mission Committee
Aug. 3, 2020—by Emma Mattson As any medical student will tell you, medicine is about far more than memorizing anatomy diagrams and symptoms of disease. Being an excellent physician means attending to the holistic needs of your patients—including needs that arise from social factors. As our social mission statement says, VUSM empowers all members of our medical...