Netizen Watch: Thoughts and Perspective of a Medical Student

Hello Fellow Netizens!

The fall weather always brings me personal joy, and I hope all you wonderful readers are keeping warm and comfortable as winter approaches. This article will differ from my usual posts (as you can probably guess from the title). I wanted to share some brief thoughts and reflections on what has happened over the past few months from my perspective as a medical student. You may not agree with everything I have to say, but that’s the beauty of free speech in this country—the ability to speak your mind and tell your story for the world to hear.

Now, picture it: Washington, D.C., 2025…

I started my surgery rotation this year around May, just as summer was beginning and Washington, D.C. was starting to warm up. Waking up at four in the morning wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but I didn’t want to be late for rounding on my patients. In my stupor, I struggled to brush my hair in a suitable style, get dressed and make my morning coffee. After a quick check to make sure I grabbed my stethoscope and laptop, I flew out the door and walked in a brisk pace to the Metro station a few minutes from my apartment building. It had been a few months since the Trump administration moved into the area, and there were noticeable changes around the city that I had run into (quite literally) on my daily commute to the hospital. More people rode the D.C. Metro in the mornings, especially since federal workers had been mandated earlier this year to physically return to their offices. At this time of the morning, I was lucky to avoid the worst of the crowds, however the commute back home in the evenings were quite busy. It wasn’t comfortable squeezing into a packed metro car, but I managed this small inconvenience.

When the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July, I was in an emotional limbo. I grew up in a middle-class home, went to a state university, and worked part-time jobs to earn money for textbooks and food. Getting into medical school brought its own set of financial challenges, but I was fortunate to have supportive parents who sacrificed to provide for my brother and me with whatever we needed to succeed.

If anyone tells you that medical students and residents are wealthy and come from fabulously rich families driving sports cars and spending thousands on medical scrubs—think again. I fully depend on federal student loans to keep me afloat, especially since the cost of medical school tuition is so high. (And contrary to what Republicans hope their bill will accomplish, costs will only continue to rise, further restricting access to students who do not come from affluent, mostly White families.)

My anxiety spiked when I heard the news that there would now be limits on how much medical students could borrow in graduate loans. How could I afford medical school now?

Thank God I was grandfathered into the new changes—it felt like I dodged a bullet. During all of this, I was also helping care for children during my pediatrics rotation. On one of our rounds at an inpatient setting, a young patient of Hispanic origin told us he was scared the government might take him away and was anxious to leave. It dawned on me that my problems, my anxieties, my fears—were nothing compared to what children like him were experiencing. I stood at the back with a mask on my face and nodded as I looked at him with what I can only describe as a mixture of empathy and sadness.

As the months went on, more changes came to the city and the country as a whole. Around August, National Guard members were deployed in Washington, D.C., under the guise of increasing security, although I barely noticed any difference as far as my feeling of safety. My commutes to clinics and sites throughout the D.C. area meant I used public transportation quite often, and I witnessed many infractions: people jumping over gates to avoid paying fares, homeless individuals sleeping on metro benches beside shopping carts filled with their belongings, and riders in clearly altered mental states harassing passengers in already crowded cars.

The guards barely made a dent in these issues—and to be frank, it seemed like they didn’t want to. Don’t get me wrong, I have no ill feelings toward the National Guard members, many of whom probably didn’t have a say in their deployment to Washington, D.C., and most likely didn’t want to be assigned as glorified metro guards or street cleaners. I passed them often in my scrubs as I hurried to my destination, no doubt trying to recall drug facts or treatment guidelines for a particular disease. They didn’t bother me, and I kept my distance.

Last night, I was sitting on my couch studying for my psychiatry rotation when I got a news alert on my phone: the Democratic Party had taken back the governorship of Virginia. Throughout the night, as more results came in, I began to feel a sense of hope I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe people in this country are finally opening their eyes to the reality we live in—inflation remains high, the cost of groceries and rent keeps rising with no end in sight, and our nation is more divided than ever under a president who seems to work only for his own interests and those of his allies.

Alas, life goes on, and I still have to finish my set of study questions for the day—but at least I have something to hold onto for my sanity in the next few hours before I go to bed.

Thanks for reading, fellow Netizens! I hope you all have gotten a brief glimpse of my life and my thoughts on the state of our nation so far. Feel free to share and post your comments about how you feel on the issues of today.

Stay Safe, and Until Next Time!

Featured Photo: Photo by Nuno Obey: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-row-boat-on-body-of-water-127160/

Disclaimer: This article reflects the author’s own opinions and statements. They do not reflect the opinions or stances of any organization affiliated with the author.