Tag Archives: Family Medicine

The Specialist in You

This is a finalist in the 2015 STFM Blog Competition

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Avelina Sandoval, MD

“You only see what you look for. You only recognize what you know.”

My attending’s words resonated in my mind as I stood there in my short white coat amidst the chaos of the busy trauma bay. It had been an extremely long night.

I was on my mandatory trauma call as a freshly minted third-year medical student. We had heard stories from our upper classmates about what to expect as we left our classroom nest and went off into the hospitals. We would either get to do “doctor-ly” things or we would get stuck with grunt work depending on who was on our team and how busy the service was.

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Our Mentoring Relationship

By Irmanie Eliacin, MD, and Suzanne Minor, MD

On being the mentee

It all started 2.5 years ago. I was a brand new faculty coming out of a busy practice and entering the realm of academic medicine; when the opportunity afforded itself I ran with it. The transition from residency to a traditional outpatient clinic to academia was daunting. At the first curriculum committee meeting I attended, I saw from afar a smiling, warm face and heard her voice loud and resounding after they introduced me as a new faculty, saying “Welcome!” Little did I know Suzanne Minor, MD (Suzie) would soon be instrumental and integral in the development of my new role as an educator.

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Why They Stay

Amanda Zavodnick, MSW, LCSW

Amanda Zavodnick, MSW, LCSW

As health care providers, we empathize with the terror and pain victims of intimate partner violence encounter. We must also empathize with the abiding love they have for their partners. 

The question of why a partner stays in an abusive relationship is almost always accompanied by a myriad of accusatory allegations. All too often we hear that victims who stay in violent relationships are “crazy,” or that they are somehow responsible, or worse even, that they provoke and revel in the abuse. We must not surrender to these myths. If we truly wish to understand why these individuals stay in abusive relationships, we must recognize that this question never has a single answer; rather there are a constellation of reasons why individuals stay in violent relationships.

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