Medicine that inspires us goes beyond what happens in the research lab or clinical setting. As future physicians, premed students inherit the responsibility of educating and serving their communities. One organization that truly exemplifies this responsibility is Project ECHO. Originally founded as Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO), Project ECHO seeks to bring specialist knowledge to local primary care providers worldwide. Dr. Sanjeev Arora founded Project ECHO in...

If you've spent any time in a medical setting, you may have already seen the effects of a language barrier between healthcare providers and patients. While phone translator services are revolutionizing practitioners' ability to communicate with anyone who walks in the door, there is always a sense of uncertainty throughout the conversation. For a patient in a critical medical moment, having a doctor who can speak some of their language increases the trust between patient and provider. For any...

In 2023, the FDA officially approved Casgevy for the treatment of sickle cell disease (SCD). This marked not only a milestone treatment for SCD but also an immense step forward in the use of genome-editing technology, setting a new precedent in the field of gene therapy. Casgevy utilizes the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 technology. CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring system that bacteria use as an immune defense. When infected with viruses, bacteria incorporate small pieces of...