Sanjana's Books

  Getting into Medical School: The Premedical Student's Guidebook By Sanford Brown, M.D. Buy the Book! This book explores the path from being a pre-med to becoming a strong medical school applicant. It covers all medical school application components including MCAT, personal statements, extra-curriculars, interviews, internet advising, extraordinary success stories etc. It provides interesting information for summer programs available throughout the country as well as a directory of allopathic and osteopathic schools with detailed information about their GPA and MCAT ranges, fees, etc. It is an excellent resource for those who want more information about the process.  Here is a summary of the chief points taught by this book: Introduction Medicine is much more than just prestige, security, independence, remuneration, service and intellectual challenges and an applicant must understand this before even deciding to apply For every one seat in Medical School, there are 3 applican...

I come from an Indian background, specifically from a Gujarati family. There is a great emphasis on business and education in a typical Gujarati household. The importance of career, academics and professional pursuits has always been a very important part of my personal identity and one of my foremost priorities in my own life. That is also why I strongly believe in the power invested in education to change the lives of millions of people. Having struggled for education myself, I firmly consider illiteracy as a very important social justice issue in the world. Sadly, this concern is not very apparent in the United States, despite the fact that 32 million adults (Washington Post, 2016) in the US can’t read. Furthermore, illiteracy is a very big concern back home in India. The average literacy rate is just 64% and for females it is even lower than the average (Census of India, 2001). Education has the power to change the course of a human’s life. It is a tool that can make an individual ...

 So I have been wanting to read this book for a loooooooooooong time! Finally got my hands on it a couple days ago and it has definitely stood up to all the expectations. It's a lovely, inspiring read and definitely recommended to anyone looking for some motivation to tone up their lives.  Keep reading for the full review! ↓↓↓ What is Ikigai? Ikigai is the Japanese word meaning a reason to live and this is the central theme of the book - finding your special individualised purpose and meaning in life; a reason that makes you want to get out of bed everyday and brings you to a state of happiness and contentment.  Finding your ikigai is important and has been emphasized in a number of places including logotherapy. and morita therapy. Not having a purpose can result in a phenomenon called Sunday neurosis - or the empty feeling on weekends when you have no job to run to or school to attend.  How to Live a Long, Happy Life 1. Don't retire Ikigai  is the secret of the...

Organ donation is a medical success story. It is one of the greatest techniques known to mankind - a tool to pragmatically defeat death. Every year, thousands of lives are saved thanks to this miracle of modern medicine but many more thousands are added to a National Transplant Waiting List. Patients on this list are waiting for months, even years at times before they receive the right organ. Time is ticking fast. The more months they spend on the list without a matching organ donor, the more closer they are getting towards death.   Gift of Life Organ donation is the most priceless gift of all - the  gift of life. A single organ donor can save the life of upto 75 people - imagine how many lives will be directly impacted by this act - hundreds? Thousands? Perhaps even more - parents of a child patient, children of an adult patient, significant others, uncles, aunts, grandparents - saving even one soul has the potential to help so many others linked to him lead a better life. Bu...

The Organ Donation Crisis Organ donation is the replacement of a diseased or non-functional organ with a healthier one. Organ transplantation and donation has become a new successful strategy to give people in need a new life. Organs that can be donated include liver, heart, kidneys, cornea of the eye, lungs, pancreas and even the intestines. Donation of body tissue, bone marrow and skin is also possible. The beauty of organ donation lies in the fact that there are no boundaries of race, age, gender, ethnicity or the like to be a potential donor. There are certain medical limitations to which organs and tissues can be used for which receipient but there are no social or economic barriers to being an organ donor. In fact, the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act (2015)has permitted even people diagnosed as HIV positive to be organ donors for HIV positive recipients.   People often feel discouraged to donate organs because they feel that as deceased donors they will never know who thei...

Organ donation is the replacement of a diseased on non-functional organ with a healthier one. Organ transplantation and donation has become a new successful strategy to gift people in need a new life. One single deceased donor can present the gift of life to up to eight people. Although deceased donors never know who their organs may go to, the fact that they have the potential to change the lives of so many people is one of the greatest reasons people should take this step.   There is an increasing amount of awareness about this ideology with the growth of institutions supporting this practice. This has helped in escalating the rate of organ donation. However, one of the major issues with this strategy is the potential lack of enough donors and organs to meet the needs of a rising number of recipients. Statistics show that organ donation has increased by an average of 3.7% per year, while the recipient waiting list has grown by 19%. Almost 20 people die every single day due t...

            Mental Health is important at all stages of life, from childhood, to adulthood and even in old age. This aspect of health is a vital part of overall well being and success in all parts of life. Sadly, it is also one of the most ignored health concerns in public welfare, as implied by the rising numbers of depressed teens and adolescent suicide rates.               Adolescence is a crucial time where an individual develops greater emotional and social awareness of the world around him. It is a period of transition that requires more attention and care in order to ensure that they have a stable life ahead of them. Young teens who have embarked on a journey of self exploration and personality development are more susceptible to losing their mental calm even over seemingly insignificant events. Therefore, greater care has to be taken not just by peers and family around them, but also by...