FOR TRAINEES | Laura Vater

The SMILE Scale: A tool to support your health

(trying to) Stay healthy in the hospital

Working in the hospital doesn’t exactly promote the health of clinicians. Here some strategies that have helped me stay healthy.

Placed into a "maternal category"

Discriminating against those who bring life into this world degrades the medical profession and lessens the perceived value of human life.

My hospital orientation

My mom was life-lined to a critical care unit. I was a first-year med student, and I remember only pieces of that first day...

Exhaustion is not a competition

“I’m so tired,” my husband says. Meanwhile, I’m post-call and have been awake for 30 hours straight. I’ve admitted five patients, pronounced

I was raised by a doctor mom

My mom went to medical school at age 37, and I was nine. She showed me that having a career and a family was both feasible and meaningful.

Breastfeeding on the interview trail

I asked every residency program (in advance) for access to a lactation room. For some programs, it was the first time they had been asked...

You are capable of building research skills

I recognize now that research competence is really all about skill building. If you increase your competence, you will increase your...

53+7: How to focus when you study

Focusing is hard. Here are some tips that have helped me study during medical school and for board exams like the USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3.