Michael Zhu

I’m a medical student at Duke University, nestled in the woods of central North Carolina. So I thought it would be fitting to open with our state motto: Esse quam videri. Or in English, "To be, rather than to seem". It’s a beautiful sentiment, but when I started medical school in 2023, I felt like I was doing the exact opposite. I had a textbook case of imposter syndrome. The Trap of Seeming In those early months, I looked around the lecture hall and saw classmates who were better in every...