Hello Doctors, Doctors-To-Be!
Lately, we have been doing many live activities to help you get closer to your doctor-dreams. In July alone, we did 3 seminars, 2 live sessions, and more to go in August. Plus, we have collaborated with Singhania University to help you complete your MD stage 1 in India! Isn’t that exciting? Indeed, it is. Catch more on that and other exciting stuff here—
#1 Great Doctors Tell Good Stories: A Message From Vice-Chancellor.
Dear Students,
“A story—a true story— can heal as much as medicine can.” Eben Alexander said this once. And, he couldn’t be more right.
Storytelling means different things to different people. Parents tell stories to children to make them sleep, teachers tell stories to their students to make them learn new things in exciting ways, speakers worldwide tell stories to their audience to better connect with them, and so on. And let me tell you, in medicine, storytelling has a special place too, because storytelling heals.
Besides giving all the medical care and evidence-based medicine to your patients, one more thing you can—and if I can say, you must— do to heal your patients is tell them really good stories.
It has been proved in science that good stories can trigger good emotions and lighten up the human brain. That’s why a good story can brighten up your patients' mood even when they’re in pain and make them feel good, helping with the healing process.
Good and inspiring stories can also bring a new ray of hope for your patients and help them get emotionally and mentally ready to go through the treatment and fight their illness with positivity.
Once you master the art of good storytelling, believe me, half of your patients’ treatment is already done. That’s why I say, “great doctors tell good stories.”
Besides working on your technical skills, start mastering storytelling. It will not only help you in treating your patients much better but will also make you a great and interesting person that people love chatting with.
Best wishes,
Air Marshal (Dr) Pawan Kapoor
AVSM, VSM, and BAR (Retd),
Former Director-General of Medical Services (IAF),
Vice-Chancellor, Lincoln American University
#2 Good News: LAU 🤝 Singhania University!
Good news for you: We’ve made it easier for you to complete stage 1 of the MD Program, i.e., Pre-medical Program, right in India, in collaboration with Singhania University of Rajasthan. Explore the new opportunity here:
#3 🎗️ For Your Health: Are You Sleeping Enough?
There are multiple debates around how much sleep you need. Different research papers claim 7-9 hours of sleep is a healthy sleep for adults. Others argue that the exact number of sleep hours depends on individual body requirements, ranging from 7-9 hours.
However, one thing that most researchers are unanimous on is that you need adequate sleep for your body and brains to work properly and live a healthy lifestyle.
Despite all the research, sleep deprivation and sleep debt are major health concerns of modern times. As a student, you need to study, enjoy a social life, have fun within your digital world, and many more things to take care of. Among all such things, one time-saving technique that comes first to mind is: “I can cut on my sleep time.”
Well, that’s a terrible choice most students make. If you sleep for inadequate hours today, you can’t make up for it by sleeping more later. To quote research on this:
“In other words, you cannot accumulate a sleep debt during the week, and then hope to pay it off in full at the weekend.
Dreaming is the only time when our brain is completely devoid of the stress-related molecule called noradrenaline (the sister chemical of adrenaline). At the same time, key emotional- and memory-related structures of the brain are reactivated during REM sleep as we dream. During the act of dreaming, we are therefore able to reactivate emotional memories in a brain that’s free of this key stress chemical. As a result, we get the chance to re-process upsetting memories in a safer, calmer environment.”
So, if you want to do well in the study and your life, please don’t compromise with your sleep. Proper sleep is not only essential for your body but your brain too. Instead of cutting your sleep, find other ways to save time and get your stuff done productively.
#4 Our Next Seminar Can Be In Your City.
In July alone, we have done 3 seminars – In Jaipur, Nagpur, and Mumbai. And who knows, our next seminar can be in your city! If you don’t wanna miss it, stay tuned with LAU upcoming events. To stay updated, we invite you to connect with the LAU community on Facebook and get notified of new seminars right in your feed.
#5 MD In Americas: On-Demand Guidance Session.
If studying in the Americas or abroad is your dream, but you’re unsure how to get there, this session is for you. In this session, LAU representatives Ms. Jasmine and Mr. Abhijeet will:
- Walk you through the process of pursuing medicine in India as well as abroad;
- Help you assess if studying abroad at LAU is the right option for you; and
- Answer frequently asked doubts regarding Visa, tuition fee, & scholarship.
#6 Friendship Day: Celebrating Friends!
“Friendship” – It’s a word that brings us joy and smiles as soon as we hear this. What’s there in it? Well, the experience, emotions, and moments that we live with our besties make it so special.
Probably no one of us can imagine a life without friends in it. And Friendship Day gives us a special occasion to make our bond with those special ones even more special!
So, let’s dedicate this one to our friends:
#7 Potatoes / Eggs / Coffee Beans: Which One Are You?
Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he put potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.
He then let them sit and boil without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.
After twenty minutes, he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and put them in a bowl.
He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her, he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”
“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.
“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.
“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs, and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.
However, each one reacted differently.
The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.
The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.
However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.
“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “
Takeaway: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us and how we react to the situation at hand.
#8 Hepatitis Can’t Wait.
That’s the 2021 theme for World Hepatitis Day set by WHO. The theme emphasizes this fact: Every 30 seconds, a person does from a hepatitis-related illness. The ray of hope is that we can bring down this number with united efforts, and for that, awareness is primary. So, we encourage you to be a part of the “Hepatitis Can’t Wait” campaign, get more aware of Hepatitis info from WHO and share it with people in your network:
#9 Eid al-Adha Mubarak 🌙
May Allah bless you with peace, prosperity, happiness, and all success you deserve. Eid al-Adha Mubarak to you!
#10 Guyana Byte: Know A Bit More About Guyana.
In Guyana’s total population, 36 percent of the residents are of African descent, while half of the people are of East Indian origin.
🦠 COVIDTIMES UPDATE.
We all are wishing that the pandemic should now ebb and go away but all indicators point to the contrary. The pandemic is unlikely to end soon unless we develop herd immunity either by way of getting infected or by getting our vaccinations. The progress of vaccination across the globe is slow and the variants are taking their toll as has been experienced with the Delta variant. After creating havoc in India it has now found its way into several countries including UK, USA, South Africa, and several other Asian and European countries. The Delta variant is very contagious and given the fact that just about 15% of the world’s population has been vaccinated, we are in for a long haul. The only silver lining is that thus far the vaccines are holding up and even if there are breakthrough infections bypassing the immune response, the outcome is not critical. The vaccinated cases have a less severe disease.
The Delta variant seems to be following an “inverted V-shape epidemic curve." This implies that though the infections will increase rapidly but would also decline quickly. This happens because the Delta variant being highly contagious spreads extremely fast but soon it runs out of candidates to infect leading to the decline. This is evidenced from the fact that India had nearly 400,000 infected cases in May but since late June it is hovering around 40,000 to 50,000 cases per day. The likelihood of other variants emerging cannot be ruled out as still a large amount of the world’s population is not vaccinated. We can only hope that those variants do not cause much concern and definitely we should not have to deal with a variant of significant consequences that would bypass both the diagnostic and immune mechanisms. Such an eventuality may be catastrophic.
We could, however, be looking at a six monthly phenomenon unlike the influenza pandemic. We hope that our assessment is incorrect but one thing is certain that we are not going to see the end of the pandemic any soon.
With COVID fatigue setting in, the COVID appropriate behavior is once again taking a back seat even amongst the vaccinated. The pace of vaccination across the globe is slow and we have not run out of Greek alphabets as yet for labeling new variants.
If we really want this pandemic to be shown the door we will have to exercise more patience and perseverance, promote COVID appropriate behavior and get the vaccination done.
🧩Quiz [The Answer Is Hidden In Text of This Newsletter.]
Per research, How many hours of sleep is adequate for most adults?
A. 6-8 hours
B. 6-9 hours
C. 7-8 hours
D. 7-9 hours
😂For A Good Laugh:
