Students and Residents Vetting and Venting Online (2006)

One medical student didn't know where to live near campus. Another worried that an anatomy course might threaten his first-year GPA. A third weighed in reassuringly that turkey sandwiches, despite their tryptophan content, have no effect on pre-test drowsiness. These three medical students were all freshmen at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, but this was no ordinary conversation by newcomers sharing first-day jitters in line at the bookstore. The discussion was part of a forum that took place entirely online at www.studentdoctor.net, said to be the most frequently visited web site on the Internet by America's future physicians. At a time when bloggers make headlines, and web sites proliferate at the speed of Australian rabbits on the deserted outback, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that medical students are vetting and venting online, and in record numbers. After all, until only recently, places for medical students to learn web-wise from peers across the country have been few and far between. But why do hardworking college grads who receive fat envelopes after applying to medical school need an Internet-based student lounge? Maybe because, to some extent, it is a therapeutic outlet for them, particularly for those who otherwise might not want to share thoughts and ideas without being cloaked in a different identity, suggested Warren Wiechmann, MD, an emergency medicine resident at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. Dr. Wiechmann is in a good position to share such an insight. At UCI he founded a web site for his fellow students that initially was a way for them to keep track of lectures, meeting times, and class work, more of a course management site than the interactive water cooler of the Student Doctor Network. The site he helped build, www.com.uci.edu/medstudents, gave rise to discussion areas, too, often centering on emergency medicine. Eventually, Dr. Wiechmann helped set up a second site for prospective emergency medicine residents, www.emselect.org.Table: Resources for Medical Students and ResidentsSuch web-based meeting places for doctors-in-training have been springing up with more regularity over only the past five years, with one theory holding that the tech-savvy medical students of today are not content with more traditional ways of spreading information, such as the medical center bulletin board. In fact, several of the web sites surveyed for this article were set up by medical students, residents, or new doctors, some of whom stressed that they didn't want to see their names in print. Why? Relative anonymity is part of the reason the web attracts so many, and users of the site are the true providers of content, according to webmasters. “Although I am director of the site, I prefer to keep a low profile,” came an e-mail reply from Lee Burnett, DO, a founder of the Student Doctor Network. “The site is successful because of its members and volunteers. I am just lucky to be involved with it.” Studentdoctor.net is said to be the most frequently visited web site by America's future physicians The Student Doctor Network, or SDN as it is commonly known, was founded in 1999. Initially, the site was a collection of different medical and dental student web sites brought together under one domain, www.studentdoctor.net. “Everyone involved with SDN is a volunteer, including myself,” Dr. Burnett explained. Site content is “entirely driven” by its student members and volunteers, he added. The SDN forums, where discussions such as the pre-test turkey sandwich debate took place, have grown to become the largest prehealth and health professional student forums on the Internet, according to Dr. Burnett. Sites like SDN address issues unlikely to be covered elsewhere: how to handle test anxiety, what to do about an incompatible roommate, and knowing when office politicking is appropriate during medical training. There are even posts that look more like comments from an online chat room for people dealing with occupational stress than a discussion forum for the kind of top-flight achievers who make it into medical school. Feelings of loneliness and confessions of insecurity are put on the network in plaintive requests for feedback and help, along with the angst-revealing chronicles of studying hard for courses that new medical school arrivals thought they had left behind in college, biochemistry being one of them. The Internet was “ a culture-changing event,” affirmed Graham Redgrave, MD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. About 10 years ago, Dr. Redgrave, who was accepted into medical school after working as a computer programmer, decided to launch a site for prospective medical students called interviewfeedback.com, where students share opinions and experiences about the medical school interview process. Dr. Redgrave said he was stunned by the response; about 15,000 of the visitors took time to fill out an online questionnaire about their interviews. He isn't sure how much it benefited those who participated, but he suspects that simply providing information during such times of distress invites a bit of relief and imparts a sense of community. “Overall, it reinforced [for me] a sense of my own experience, and that is how anxious people are about getting into medical school. I don't think that has changed, or is it likely to.” Comments about this article? Write to EMN atemnlww.com.