On running (away from your responsibilities)

By Calypso Magyar & Maisie Hands

For many, the stress of medical school and need to study can get in the way of partaking in physical activity. You tell yourself that you got way more than 10,000 steps in while walking around the hospital so you don’t need to do anything more on top of that, or that you can’t afford to take an hour off from all that anatomy you need to learn. Unfortunately that physical activity is often coloured by the stress of the day and doesn’t give you any space to unwind.

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The first time I saw a patient die

By Aaron Kovacs

The first time I ever saw a patient die was just over two years ago, only a month or two into my first clinical placement as a third year medical student. She was an older lady, maybe in her mid sixties, with advanced uterine cancer. The resident and I found her lying on top of her bed, eyes wide and fixed in place, her body rigid as concrete.

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Sharing the Burden

By Grace Scolyer & Alannah Murray

How to Speak

When I first noticed that my brain wasn’t working the way it used to, it wasn’t tragically melancholic like I expected. Addressing, admitting, and conveying my depressed thoughts was embarrassing, confusing, strange, and disorientating. More than anything though, it was just plain awkward explaining what was going on — but I knew it was time to let someone else share the burden, because I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t.

Since then, I’ve had plenty of strange, vulnerable, and poorly-segued conversations with my friends, family, and doctors, trying to explain the messy parts of my brain. Here’s what I have learnt.

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