In the final weeks before Match Day, fourth-year medical students are usually juggling rotations and the stress of waiting to find out where they'll be doing their residencies.
But in the first week of March, Farrah-Amoy Fullerton, a fourth-year med student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, spent nearly every free moment she had screening direct messages and replies on Twitter.
Fullerton has been a key organizer of #MedGradWishList, an online mutual-aid movement for graduating medical students from underrepresented groups in which they share Amazon.com wishlists. Members of the #MedTwitter community are encouraged to show their support by buying students' preferred items -- which can range from medical textbooks and supplies to things they'll need for new living arrangements.
The idea for #MedGradWishList arose when a pediatric neurologist who goes by "Amy G Dala" on Twitter (she asked that her real name not be used) saw a fourth-year medical student asking for recommendations for a pediatric stethoscope on Twitter.
To show her support, Dala wanted to purchase the stethoscope for this student as a graduation present. It struck her that this could be an opportunity for others to show appreciation for medical graduates, particularly those who are already underrepresented in their fields.
"They have been doing a lot of work this past year educating others, that they do free of charge in their own time," Dala said. She, like many other physicians, had been seeing the work that Black medical students had put into educating their followers on Twitter about the Black Lives Matter movement, amidst the pressures of simply being a medical student during a pandemic and political unrest.
"And then on top of it, to be using extra energy and time to be thanklessly educating others, serving on diversity teams in their own hospitals. I mean, it's just exhausting, the mental labor we're asking our students to do," Dala told MedPage Today.
Dala approached Fullerton on Twitter to vet the #MedGradWishList idea. Fullerton liked it and made an open spreadsheet for students to share their links. She started to spread the word on her own Twitter and in a nationwide GroupMe chat for Black medical students.
"I think for a lot of people, especially Black people, we're not used to getting gifts from the kindness of other people's hearts. We're used to doing things ourselves and prioritizing others," Fullerton said. For her, it was time for the tables to be turned; she was guided by the fact that she and her peers of color have been applying to residency programs not only in the middle of a pandemic, but also during ongoing discrimination lawsuits filed by Black women in medicine.
Fullerton realized that the nature of the wishlist movement required a deep level of vulnerability. Promoting your wishlist meant admitting that there were things you couldn't afford, or that you didn't already have. In order to ask others to do the same, Fullerton had to first be vulnerable herself.
"One of the things I put on my list was a bed, and I didn't want anyone to know that I didn't own a bed," Fullerton disclosed. "It was really expensive and I didn't think anyone was going to get it for me."
The bed was on her list for only about twenty hours before somebody bought it for her, she said.
"Now I have my very own first bed that I am going to residency with and something I don't have to take out another loan for," she said. "These are the kinds of things I tried to put at the forefront so people knew that sharing what you need is only an invitation to get what you need."
In about two to three days, the list had accumulated more than 300 students and their wishlists. But soon, online trolls corrupted the spreadsheet. At first, Fullerton allowed the list to be edited by the public so she didn't have to add each person's information individually. But anonymous users started to replace her classmates' details with links to other Amazon wishlists.
Fullerton quickly locked down the list. With the help of a group of other Black women in medicine, they cleaned it up line-by-line, tracking down each student who had their links compromised.
Keisha Odunze, a fourth-year medical graduate from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, enjoyed seeing her peers share their wishlists and supported them through retweets. It wasn't until Fullerton reached out to her personally that Odunze decided to jump in and make one for herself.
Odunze's medical school experience is marked by moving; she started her first year in Saint Martin, but after Hurricane Irma destroyed much of the campus, she and her classmates had to abruptly relocate to Preston, a small town in England, for her second year. She spent her third-year rotations at the Bronx Hospital in New York City, where she still lives now.
For Odunze, the most meaningful items on her wishlist were simply high-quality homeware, something that she never had the time, resources, or permanency to invest in. In total, she's received more than twenty gifts of varying values and sizes, including durable pots and pans, office supplies, and a doormat that says, "Hello Sunshine."
Aaliyah Riccardi, an aspiring otolaryngologist from the University of Connecticut, also went out on a limb and put an expensive mixer on her wishlist, despite the initial discomfort that came with asking for pricier items. To her surprise, someone had purchased the mixer for her within the first couple of hours that she listed the item.
"It wasn't an absolute necessity for me as a student, but it was something I really wanted," Riccardi told MedPage Today. "But [the person who bought it] realized it would bring me joy and make me a better person and therefore a better doctor, resident, intern, et cetera."
Fullerton and her fellow students have received mostly positive feedback from donors and appreciative gift recipients. FIGS, a popular scrubs retailer, spotted the trend from Amy G. Dala's original tweet and donated 50 gift cards of $100 each to be dispersed among the wishlist-ers. Still, Fullerton mentioned that she was sent a lot of "less than supportive" messages, many from anonymous accounts.
"A lot of people don't understand why something like this is necessary, or why Black and underrepresented minorities were the only people getting gifts," Fullerton said.
Although Dala wanted the hashtag to provide aid and express gratitude, she remained acutely aware of her privilege as a white physician. She was concerned that she may have inadvertently created more work for a group of predominantly Black female fourth-years, who were already under a number of other pressures.
She received a message from a colleague suggesting that #MedGradWishList might be perceived as "cringe-y," and worried the movement would be seen as an act of white savior-ism. At one point, she expressed these concerns to Fullerton, who told MedPage Today that Dala was nothing but supportive and never centered herself in the #MedGradWishList movement.
Dala, however, welcomes judgment and scrutiny.
"I'm given a lot of freedom as an upper-middle-class white woman," Dala said. "So I think it's okay if I'm scrutinized publicly for the things I do and to be held accountable, because we all should be."
Dala recalled that, for her and others, one of the many highlights of this experience was getting to know people through their wishlists. She purchased hair products for Black women, reflex hammers, and textbooks. For Fullerton, the #MedGradWishList movement created a sense of camaraderie among both medical students and practicing physicians that she hadn't previously been a part of.
"I feel like if anything, #MedGradWishList is bringing #MedTwitter even closer together," Fullerton said. "There can be a lot of bad stuff on that site, so any good I want to center and emphasize."
Last Updated March 11, 2021
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