No one said that medical school would be rearranged, distorted, and unpredictable—perhaps they did. Yet no one could predict all that by way of a global pandemic! As a person who strongly relies on their faith, all I could do was release all my fears and worries to God.

I was one of the few students whose USMLE Step 1 exam was not canceled, but my summer was altered in other ways. After a long-winded two years, we all look forward to our three-month vacation between the second and third years of medical school.

Colleagues and I dreamed of our plans for "second-year summer." One friend said she’d be traveling Europe with her sister, and another planned a road trip to the west coast. I planned to visit my sister in South Carolina to be there for the birth of my nephew and had hoped to later travel to Kumasi, Ghana to spend time with family and work in my auntie’s midwifery clinic.

Second-year summer was our passage through freedom, a taste of post-residency life before things became serious again. Our brains, body, and soul needed a break from H&Ps, drug mechanisms of action, differential diagnosis, and UWorld. While some of us still found bits of freedom in other ways besides traveling the world, the anxiety of the pandemic and the social discourse happening around the US still hovered over us.

For me, there was a bonus “worry”: I would be having neurosurgery.

During my dedicated study time for USMLE Step 1, I used my knowledge gained from our neuro-related C3’s during the Middle Clinical Experience (MCE, Year 2). I saw it, a large syrinx spanning my cervical spinal cord and an obvious herniation of my cerebellar tonsils. Okay, I got the diagnosis...but what’s the assessment and plan?

I hadn’t learned all of that yet. I eventually found a neurosurgeon who recommended surgery. He asked, “when is your next break from school?” My answer was now. They would call me with a date.

It was juxtaposing becoming the patient when I had been working so hard to be the physician...It was surreal watching the healthcare team bed-side round on me.

In the background of all of this, I sat for my USMLE Step 1. I was antsy, ready to finish this race and put the exam behind me. I met a student from a different medical school. His exam was canceled eight times. He was nervous, but ready. We shared words of encouragement. "We can only do what we can do. We got this,” I told him. And to myself, I frequently whispered “it’s just me God and a couple of hundred questions.” I would do what He has prepared me to do. I slept well that night. I had left the world of board exam preparation and entered freedom.

I was smacked with the traumatizing video of George Floyd, the story of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery...the heart cry of my brothers and sisters of the black community. How many names did we have to memorize, put on t-shirts, and bring up in speeches for people to hear us? I felt guilty that since I was behind the veil of medical school, I was late to the current events. Still, my heart cried the same. I watched the thousands of people gather in downtown Detroit on the news. I watched the frustration, but also the unity. I joined a protest at the Charles H. Wright Museum. With both hands up I chanted “hand’s up, don’t shoot.”

Those words were powerful. I had never said them before. Tears flowed from my eyes as I put myself in Breonna’s shoes, specifically. It was different. My black brothers go through so much, criminalized before a word leaves their mouth. I’d like to think there is just a bit more physical remorse in the world for black women. But, who am I to think that I am any safer? I am still black. Dark like coffee—no cream, no sugar (one of my favorite sayings), hair kinky coily, and lips full as day. It’s beauty in my eyes and the eyes of my maker, but a weapon in the eyes of others. Recounting to Sandra Bland, we won’t forget.

Early summer I had the pleasure of taking a road trip with my family. Our annual family trip was altered due to COVID, but we still longed to see more of the world. I planned an east coast road trip. Our focus would be on black history. We went through Baltimore, a staple of black culture and history. We hit Philadelphia and marveled at the President’s House, a slave quarter. The historical atmosphere of Philly was contradictory and felt strange. We made our way through a few other states. Each city center we passed through had signs that read “Black Lives Matter.” Maybe they hear us?

On our last day of the road trip, I received the call. They had given me a date for my neurosurgery. I had one week to prepare. Leaning full-weight on my faith, I let God’s strength fill me. I prayed for a safe procedure, an uncomplicated recovery, that the surgeon wouldn’t cut too much of my hair, and to be left a little bit of summer that I could enjoy.

It was juxtaposing becoming the patient when I had been working so hard to be the physician. The surgery was successful. It was surreal watching the healthcare team bed-side round on me. From being fully functioning and otherwise healthy one moment to being unable to move my head, uncomfortable, and in need of assistance for everything.

My family were my angels. They were angels in face masks risking COVID to stay with me in the hospital. Within two weeks, I was back to myself. Who knew my first surgery would be brain surgery in the middle of a pandemic?

The Late Clinical Experience (LCE, Years 3 and 4) rolls around and I was sad and scared to say goodbye to “freedom.” CHM had kept us in the loop of all things COVID, from Dr. Sousa’s helpful townhall sessions to class meetings and emails. Policies would change, but the caring nature of our faculty stayed the same. Their proactive and intentional nature made me comfortable to enter clinical work again.

A face shield during all clinical encounters left a lasting mark on my forehead, but I was thankful to be apart of the care of patients. Walking into a clerkship and never seeing the bottom half of the face you would be working with for four weeks. Our reality would be like Wilson from Tim Allen’s Home Improvement sitcom.

With third-year came the emotional toll of transitioning to 100% clinical work, no more small group debriefings with those from my Learning Society. I missed my small groups. We ended the year without saying goodbye, spread out across Michigan. My heart warmed when I saw their names pop up on the screen during class meetings.

The transition was tough. I turned off my medical lens to be a layperson for three months. I forgot how to “code-switch” and my medical knowledge felt almost nonexistent. I was so discouraged. It took four weeks to break the ice. Each week, I was a little less rusty and more acclimated to COVID-related changes. Through it all, I learned to give myself grace. It was one heck of a summer: a rocky road, but a rocky road through freedom.

It's interesting to think that 102 years have passed since a cohort of medical students learned during a pandemic. As a third-year medical student, I have found both solace and wonder in imagining their experiences.

The medical students of 1918 learned without N95 masks, social media, or instant access to the newest information about the 1918 H1N1 virus. They weathered a first wave of the virus, only to face a deadlier, more challenging second wave. A sitting American president, Woodrow Wilson, contracted the H1N1 virus. America has been through the heartbreak, fear, and economic disaster of a pandemic before.

That sure doesn’t make this pandemic any easier to bear.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of COVID-19. Men, women, and celebrities. Names we will never know. Far too many members of medically underserved communities. Many survivors, including my college roommate, are “long-haulers,” experiencing disabling long-term effects of the virus months after being infected.

I got hooked on medicine as a career because I wanted to help other people. This statement rings true among health care professionals worldwide. As I watched the heroism, emotional exhaustion, and resilience of health care providers flash across my television screen and news apps this summer, I felt a growing sense of powerlessness. These professionals were helping heal our world. I was spending my days studying for Step 1, my first medical board exam. I got into medicine to help, but I didn’t yet know how to help, and our nation was experiencing a medical crisis.

I knew with the time demands of medical school that I wasn’t going to be the next Rosie the Riveter of healthcare. But as the world kept changing at warp speed, I asked myself again and again: what can a third-year medical student do to help during a pandemic?

There are no right answers to this question. There has been, however, an individual answer for me. My answer has been to study hard so I am prepared to care for my future patients, while practicing a new personal approach to challenges and uncertainty (There have been many opportunities to practice this approach in 2020).

As part of a Mental Health and Wellness course at the College of Human Medicine, I was introduced to a TEDTalk featuring an emergency department physician speaking about “unconditional positive self-regard.” This has been my go-to approach to the pandemic and the beginning of my third year of medical school.

The theory behind unconditional positive self-regard is to recognize that you are doing the best that you can, even though you will make mistakes. Acknowledging your efforts helps you more effectively learn from your mistakes. When I put on a few extra pandemic pounds from sitting and studying for Step 1 all day, I recognized that I had been doing the best that I could, and then bought groceries that were a little healthier. When I started my OB/GYN clerkship and struggled to tie surgical knots, I acknowledged that I was doing the best that I could, and then went home to practice.

I’ve found that navigating challenges and uncharted territory is far less scary when you take the time to acknowledge that you are doing the best that you can. This is the biggest lesson that the pandemic has taught me thus far.

Speaking of wellness, one of the biggest lessons that medical school has taught me is how valuable time away from school is. I had always envisioned walking out of Step 1, boarding an airplane, and heading to Las Vegas to visit my sister. I had even been saving up a “bucket list” item for the occasion–braving the Stratosphere SkyJump, which is the Guinness World Record-holding largest controlled freefall jump in North America. With COVID-19 cases rising this summer, my husband and I cancelled this trip. Importantly, though, we didn’t cancel the precious time that we had planned away from our studies (he is a Ph.D. student).

We packed up a two-person tent, instant meals, and copious amounts of s’mores supplies to spend a weekend with no cell phone reception camping with his family in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Even though my post-Step 1 adventure didn’t involve pseudo-bungee jumping, and time with my sister has been over the phone, I visited Lake Superior for the first time and sampled Mackinac Island fudge. COVID-19 has been teaching me to do the best with the time and resources that I have, and Michigan is a beautiful natural resource to explore!

Back at school, MSU CHM has done an excellent job of keeping medical students safely involved in patient care. As of this writing, there have been no disruptions to my third-year clerkship training. MSU has trained us in the proper use of personal protective equipment, provided us with face shields, fitted us for N95 masks, and advocated for the involvement of medical students in in-person hospital clerkships. I am proud to be a future Spartan MD.

I’ve found that navigating challenges and uncharted territory is far less scary when you take the time to acknowledge that you are doing the best that you can. This is the biggest lesson that the pandemic has taught me thus far.

While the world continues to change, babies are born. Preventive care decisions are made. Chronic conditions are treated. MSU CHM medical students continue to learn how to best help patients. Pandemic history continues to repeat itself. As the physician N. Roy Grist wrote to a colleague in September 1918:

“We eat it, sleep it, and dream it, to say nothing of breathing it 16 hours a day.”

Grist continues: “I would be very grateful indeed if you would drop me a line or two once in a while, and I promise you that if you ever get into a fix like this, I will do the same for you.”

This pandemic physician of 1918 recognized the value of social connection. Although we have social media, 24-hour news cycles, and new technologies at our fingertips, human connection is a time-tested pandemic coping strategy that we can use to approach this pandemic, with unconditional positive self-regard and a desire to help each other, together.