Diary of a Med Student

From the earliest stages of our medical training, we experience unforgettable moments with our patients - inspiring, traumatic, joyful, and sometimes even humorous events. Too often, as doctors-in-training we talk about the suffering or recovery of our patients, ignoring our own emotions after these events, letting them passively shape us until we dig ourselves into an abyss of burn out and resentment.

Diary of a Med Student is a book created by medical students, for medical students, doctors, pre-med students, and their loved ones to look backward, forward, and laterally on the wonderful world of medical school. This book offers a space to reflect on our emotions, process their meaning, and share them as tales of sorrow, humor, joy, or inspiration, told from the perspective of medical students writing in a diary.

While the act of sharing emotion is itself therapeutic, reading these emotional challenges that we can all relate to is unifying and comforting, providing us with insight through the lessons conveyed in the light of a variety of feelings. Let this book spark a powerful domino effect of change in medical education: in the way we teach physicians to create a safe space for inner reflection and expression of emotion to ultimately enhance physician wellness.

Daniel Azzam is a medical student, scientific researcher and writer, and professional freestyle soccer athlete. With nearly a decade writing scientific articles for journals on the mind, brain, and eyes, and possessing a creative style from several freestyle soccer and sports articles in the Daily Bruin, Daniel has a refreshingly energetic voice that shines through in his book Diary of a Med Student. Daniel completed his undergraduate studies in Neuroscience, Spanish Language, and Biomedical Research at UCLA. Currently, he is finishing the final stages of his MD and MBA degrees at UC Irvine before pursuing his dreams of becoming an eye surgeon. He has over a dozen peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals on topics ranging from eye surgery to treatments for brain cancer. Daniel lives as a passionate explorer, ultramarathon runner, and scientist who dreams of discovering novel methods for improving medical services to patients across the globe.

Ajay Nair Sharma is currently a senior medical student and business student at the University of California, Irvine. Ajay serves as the Class President and President of the Associated Medical Student Government, as well as a member of the Admissions Committee at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Through these roles, he has gained superb experience in understanding the challenges faced by the medical student body in all four years of medical school and has become a leader in addressing these challenges. He is the recipient of several awards and an elected member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. As a scientific researcher, Ajay has focused on skin cancer treatment, heart disease, and quality improvement in medicine, with over 20 peer-reviewed publications and counting. In his free time, Ajay enjoys working as a talented medical artist, playing soccer, and traveling the world. He dreams of becoming a dermatologist focusing on the treatment of skin cancer and a leader in healthcare, whereby he will strive to make changes that positively impact the well-being of his patients and the wellness of his peers.