Mental Health Begins With Medical Students

I really believe that a medical student who is comfortable with therapy, becomes a physician who is comfortable with therapy; one who is comfortable with addressing the mental health of their colleagues, and one who can identify when their own mental health is spiralling out of control – and then do something about it.

When College Kinda Sucks

Before I left high school, I compiled a book with letters and notes from friends and teachers. I still own this book, and it has served its job in reminiscing and inspiration many times. But one thing that still guts me a little is that so many messages from teachers proclaim, “You are going to

I’m an early-adopter and this is a rant

There’s a story I tell hopefuls wishing to run for student government. Near the end of 2011 I was elected as chairperson of my med school’s student government. I had made big promises  during my campaign and so the first thing I did was (try to) get a meeting with the CEO of our training hospital.

Rant: Security in South African Hospitals

So now that it’s reached the media, I can write about an unfortunate incident without the threat of being considered a traitor. One of our students was assaulted in the hospital on Saturday morning. A lot of “”big people” are trying to call it “attempted assault”. I say nonsense.

A Gift for Sending People to Sleep

This is week 2 of our theoretical Anaesthesia block. I’ll admit I haven’t been attending much class. One reason is that I had a bad run-in with an Anaesthesia professor when dealing with student government business. And the other is that I’m really tired. But mostly, it’s that when I attend class I fall asleep.

My Latest Obsession

On Friday, members of the Student Government (including myself!) were invited to attend Semester at Sea‘s Open Ship at Cape Town Harbour. This is us being all touristy-like:

Protesting on campus

Tygerberg Campus is not the most politically active campus in South Africa. Earlier this year, the student council organised something called “courageous conversations” in order to address concerns about homophobia on campus [courageous conversations can address any issues, though]. The audience consisted almost solely of the student council and the media. This campus is one