Upon getting the good news that I had made it into medschool, I asked one of my friends who was already in what he recommended I do in order to prepare.
His Advice was this: Do all the things this summer that you may have a harder time doing once you are in the hectic stream of a medical career because its momentum can be difficult to handle.
I took this advice to heart. I had been working in a research environment that was, to put it mildly, my incarnation of hell. I was expected to put in long hours for less than minimal pay learning boring techniques from people I could barely understand to work towards a project that had no direction for a supervisor I wouldn't piss on if he were on fire. So I quit.
I went out and bought a 50'' plasma, a mountain bike, tennis racket, and PS3. I planned 3 vacations. I slept in late, and ate extravagant food. I bought and read all the novels I have been wanting to read. I caught up with friends I've lost touch with over my premed endeavor. I downloaded new music, revamped the decorating in my apartment, test-drove expensive cars for the fun of it. I refreshed my mind and body.
Im the type of person who always has his eyes on the future. Im used to measuring my days in terms of HOPs, or, Hours Of Productivity. For the past two years I have logged no less than 10 HOPs every single day. The fruits of these labors included a 4.0 GPA, hundreds of volunteer hours, a stellar MCAT score achieved the same summer I published in a high impact journal, founded and lead a student group to raise thousands of dollars for cancer research, etc, etc. Now before you label me an arrogant prick, please allow me to explain. I describe my abbreviated CV not in the hopes of impressing anyone, because compared with many of the people reading this blog, and those who have their own blogs, it is an average laundry list of success. I know this. I describe the achievements only to convey the fact that everyone deserves a break. All premeds need to pause and enjoy the moment sometimes, before moving on to the next challenge.
A couple days after I quit my job, I started ruminating about the prospect of a 4-month stretch bereft of productivity. But I had to adjust my narrow concept of productive activities. Taking time to broaden my interests and reconnect with things I had neglected was, is, productive. I am certain that when I enter medschool several days from now, I will enter with a ferocious enthusiasm, and an unbridled ambition. And this is a direct product of the rejuvenating summer I have had. Pausing for the summer produced within me a clarified vision of what I want for myself in the future. I've been able to solidify my own convictions, such that, I feel emboldened to pursue life with a new sense of vigor. Becoming a physician is more than just a string of accomplishments. As I see it, cultivating a love for life outside of medicine is as important as mastering your craft within it.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Top 10 Medical Memoirs/Novels/Collections/Commentary
10. Keith Black, Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles
9. Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
8. Sherwin B. Nuland, The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside
7. Atul Gawande, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
6. Daneille Ofri, Incidental Findings: Lessons from my Patients in the Art of Medicine
5. Daneille Ofri, Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue
4. John B. Dossetor, Beyond the Hippocratic Oath: A Memoir on the Rise of Modern Ethics
3. Sandeep Jauhar, Intern: A Doctor's Initiation
2. Michael J. Collins, Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon
1. Michael J. Collins, Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
Honorable Mentions:
Charles R. Morris, The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center
Arthur W. Perry, The Real Life of a Surgeon
Vincent Lam, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
Sherwin B. Nuland, The Doctor's Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis
Samuel Shem, The House of God
Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
9. Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
8. Sherwin B. Nuland, The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside
7. Atul Gawande, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
6. Daneille Ofri, Incidental Findings: Lessons from my Patients in the Art of Medicine
5. Daneille Ofri, Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue
4. John B. Dossetor, Beyond the Hippocratic Oath: A Memoir on the Rise of Modern Ethics
3. Sandeep Jauhar, Intern: A Doctor's Initiation
2. Michael J. Collins, Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon
1. Michael J. Collins, Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
Honorable Mentions:
Charles R. Morris, The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center
Arthur W. Perry, The Real Life of a Surgeon
Vincent Lam, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
Sherwin B. Nuland, The Doctor's Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis
Samuel Shem, The House of God
Jerome Groopman, How Doctors Think
Friday, July 23, 2010
10 Things I Look Forward to about Medschool (In no particular order)
10. The social functions
9. Learning material that is (a) mostly interesting, (b) mostly relevant to the craft I seek to master, and (c) presented in a mostly interesting mixture of ways (lecture, small group, etc)
8. Pass/Fail
7. Joining a historical brotherhood of amazing minds, the likes of which I have no business considering myself a part of, but will join by default (Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Dr. Oz, etc)
6. New everything: people, professors, lecture halls, challenges, triumphs, failures, etc
5. Instructors who, I hope, will be more organized, competent, and enthusiastic than what I encountered during undergrad
4. A place to go between meals
3. The free stuff: backpack, food, ritual humiliation, etc
2. The camaraderie that will come from going through the same things with the same people at the the same time for four years
1. The endless number of medically related questions people will ask me, of which I will not know the answer, but proceed to answer in 'creative' ways (joint pain can be relieved by hot sauce and the possession of a garden gnome right?)
9. Learning material that is (a) mostly interesting, (b) mostly relevant to the craft I seek to master, and (c) presented in a mostly interesting mixture of ways (lecture, small group, etc)
8. Pass/Fail
7. Joining a historical brotherhood of amazing minds, the likes of which I have no business considering myself a part of, but will join by default (Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Dr. Oz, etc)
6. New everything: people, professors, lecture halls, challenges, triumphs, failures, etc
5. Instructors who, I hope, will be more organized, competent, and enthusiastic than what I encountered during undergrad
4. A place to go between meals
3. The free stuff: backpack, food, ritual humiliation, etc
2. The camaraderie that will come from going through the same things with the same people at the the same time for four years
1. The endless number of medically related questions people will ask me, of which I will not know the answer, but proceed to answer in 'creative' ways (joint pain can be relieved by hot sauce and the possession of a garden gnome right?)
Monday, July 19, 2010
One Reason I will be a Doctor
Enter MedicineMan 3 years ago:
My hands burn. Its not a just-touched-the-stove burn, nor is it a fire-ants-are-eating-my-hands burn. Its a dull nagging burn I can only imagine would result from handling plutonium. I turn the lights off to see if my hands are glowing. They are not. This is probably because the burning is not from radioactive materials, but from handling asphalt shingles from sunup to sundown for the past week. My hands have the faint smell of burned bacon, which is strange considering I don't dig on swine. For anyone who isn't in the know about asphalt shingles, they are a mixture primarily of gravel and fiberglass held together by carcinogenic (teratogenic to pregnant roofers) tar. Juggle balls of jagged glass all day and you will know what its like to be a roofer. This material is so heinous that it ate through 34 (!) pairs of work gloves over a 4 month period.
At this point your asking why anyone would work as a roofer. I did because (a) I subconsciously wanted to punish myself, (b) I had the highly misguided notion that every man should experience a stretch of manual labor in his life, (c) I felt extremely macho swinging a nailgun around, and (d) it paid extremely well (if you could tolerate the plutonium hands thing). While my peers were nerding it up washing beakers and adjusting their eyeglasses in some lab that dealt in the business of bioinformatics (whatever that is), I was getting a dope tan and whistling at chicks from 2 stories above. Pretty cool way to earn cash in between years at university right? Well, only if you will, in the not-too-distant future, enjoy rubbing tiger balm on your knees and vigilantly checking the evolution of your moles (my girlfriend calls them "angel kisses"...Angels must think I look like Brad Pitt) on a weekly basis and forcing your friends to evaluate if the margins of your moles appear "irregular".
But I digress.
Back to the purpose of this post: One reason I chose to enter medschool. It was driving home from work after being washed off the roof by torrential rain. I was tired, sore, and preoccupied with whether my burning hands would eat through my steering wheel. Needless to say, my attention was momentarily diverted from the road and I rear-ended the motorist in front of me. I also have to blame the rain, i did slide for what seemed like 87.6 seconds.
Having zero experience with car accidents, I went to see my dad to get some advice on how to handle things. Fast forward 2 weeks later and I have damage estimates for both vehicles in the realm of $3,500 (I chose to pay for the repairs myself to avoid the insurance bump that would have cost me more in the long run). This means that a split second lapse in attention resulted in me juggling jagged glass for free for one month. I felt like a demented clown.
Aware of my despondency, my dad told me that he wished he could help me with the repairs, but my family just couldn't afford it. He told me to use this experience as one motivating factor in my pursuit of higher learning. A good job would ensure that accidents in the future don't interfere with living life comfortably and with a certain semblance of stability. He told me stories of living from paycheck to paycheck, and scrambling to save for family vacations only to have a car break down or the like.
When I envision my future, I want to be in a position where my kids not only have the opportunities that financial security will bring, but also the comfort in knowing that mistakes they make will not consume the fruits of a months worth of labor.
I am well aware that this kind of security can be derived from a multitude of different careers. That this is an attribute of a career in medicine is a crucial factor in my choice to pursue becoming a doctor, amongst many many others. I address the financial motivation because it is often viewed as taboo to talk about. There have been many articles about doctors and the subject of money, as if the discussion somehow undermines the ideals of the profession. I am definitely excited to drive seadoos in bling-studded glory, but that kind of financial security is not what I am getting at. Its about climbing Maslow's pyramid, and who says you can't do it in a rolls?
My hands burn. Its not a just-touched-the-stove burn, nor is it a fire-ants-are-eating-my-hands burn. Its a dull nagging burn I can only imagine would result from handling plutonium. I turn the lights off to see if my hands are glowing. They are not. This is probably because the burning is not from radioactive materials, but from handling asphalt shingles from sunup to sundown for the past week. My hands have the faint smell of burned bacon, which is strange considering I don't dig on swine. For anyone who isn't in the know about asphalt shingles, they are a mixture primarily of gravel and fiberglass held together by carcinogenic (teratogenic to pregnant roofers) tar. Juggle balls of jagged glass all day and you will know what its like to be a roofer. This material is so heinous that it ate through 34 (!) pairs of work gloves over a 4 month period.
At this point your asking why anyone would work as a roofer. I did because (a) I subconsciously wanted to punish myself, (b) I had the highly misguided notion that every man should experience a stretch of manual labor in his life, (c) I felt extremely macho swinging a nailgun around, and (d) it paid extremely well (if you could tolerate the plutonium hands thing). While my peers were nerding it up washing beakers and adjusting their eyeglasses in some lab that dealt in the business of bioinformatics (whatever that is), I was getting a dope tan and whistling at chicks from 2 stories above. Pretty cool way to earn cash in between years at university right? Well, only if you will, in the not-too-distant future, enjoy rubbing tiger balm on your knees and vigilantly checking the evolution of your moles (my girlfriend calls them "angel kisses"...Angels must think I look like Brad Pitt) on a weekly basis and forcing your friends to evaluate if the margins of your moles appear "irregular".
But I digress.
Back to the purpose of this post: One reason I chose to enter medschool. It was driving home from work after being washed off the roof by torrential rain. I was tired, sore, and preoccupied with whether my burning hands would eat through my steering wheel. Needless to say, my attention was momentarily diverted from the road and I rear-ended the motorist in front of me. I also have to blame the rain, i did slide for what seemed like 87.6 seconds.
Having zero experience with car accidents, I went to see my dad to get some advice on how to handle things. Fast forward 2 weeks later and I have damage estimates for both vehicles in the realm of $3,500 (I chose to pay for the repairs myself to avoid the insurance bump that would have cost me more in the long run). This means that a split second lapse in attention resulted in me juggling jagged glass for free for one month. I felt like a demented clown.
Aware of my despondency, my dad told me that he wished he could help me with the repairs, but my family just couldn't afford it. He told me to use this experience as one motivating factor in my pursuit of higher learning. A good job would ensure that accidents in the future don't interfere with living life comfortably and with a certain semblance of stability. He told me stories of living from paycheck to paycheck, and scrambling to save for family vacations only to have a car break down or the like.
When I envision my future, I want to be in a position where my kids not only have the opportunities that financial security will bring, but also the comfort in knowing that mistakes they make will not consume the fruits of a months worth of labor.
I am well aware that this kind of security can be derived from a multitude of different careers. That this is an attribute of a career in medicine is a crucial factor in my choice to pursue becoming a doctor, amongst many many others. I address the financial motivation because it is often viewed as taboo to talk about. There have been many articles about doctors and the subject of money, as if the discussion somehow undermines the ideals of the profession. I am definitely excited to drive seadoos in bling-studded glory, but that kind of financial security is not what I am getting at. Its about climbing Maslow's pyramid, and who says you can't do it in a rolls?
Enter MedicineMan
Hello and welcome to the first installment of yet another medical blog!
Lets start with some definitions of what this blog will/will not be:
1. This blog will not be a pedantic exposition of how to get into medical school. I will post the odd bit of candid advice I wish I would have been given during my stint as a premed.
2. This blog will contain interesting (hopefully) musings about the day-to-day life of a medstudent. In this regard I hope to create a narrative on par with that of "Vitum medicinus"; anyone who has not checked out this blog, please vindictively close mine now and get started on his/hers --it is awesome!
3. This blog will not be a melodramatic vomitus of the "profound" significance of anything. I will do my best to avoid using contrived phrases such as "one must always...".
4. This blog will include authentic anecdotes about the mistakes I make on my journey through medschool, as well as retrospective thoughts on what should have been done in the stead of whatever gross misconduct occurred. In this regard, I foresee this blog as having some potential for educational value.
5. This blog may inspire, I hope it will entertain, it will likely offend (for which I apologize in advance, but this is often the price of honesty).
I guess I will conclude with the reason I have started this blog, which is rather multi-faceted. Perhaps the most important reason for this blog is to document a path that I hope will be meaningful. I have always been fascinated by character "arcs". Someone starts "here", a bunch of stuff happens, and they end up "there". This blog is a way for me to document my arc, such that, in 10 years I can come back to this very post and see how self-absorbed I once was, and then relish on how self-effacing I have become.
Secondly, this blog has a protective function. When I found out I had gotten into medschool, I took it upon myself to read Samuel Shem's "The House of God". The most important thing I took away from the novel was the necessity of fighting off isolation during times of tribulation. Therefore, this blog is a method for me to stay connected without the hassle of actual face to face interaction (joke). That is the main reason I choose to blog rather than keep a personal journal.
Lastly, I have surveyed the vast variety of medical blogs out there. Many are excellent, and many are not excellent. I make no promise about which camp this blog will roam. What I can promise is the unique perspective with which I view the world. If you enjoy complex, dynamic characters, you may enjoy reading the blog of a person who thinks Hannibal Lecter is insanely cool (and 87.6% justified in symbolic cannabalism (not real cannabalism though, thats just crazy)). You may enjoy trying to reconcile how a person can be incessantly sardonic, yet sincerely empathetic. I can't promise I will never be verbose or abstruse, but I can promise that this blog will be authentic. For readers with IQ's below 146, this blog will challenge your views about the medical realm and all that it entails; for readers with IQ's above 146, go invent something.
I look forward to what is to come, and sharing it with everyone
MM
Lets start with some definitions of what this blog will/will not be:
1. This blog will not be a pedantic exposition of how to get into medical school. I will post the odd bit of candid advice I wish I would have been given during my stint as a premed.
2. This blog will contain interesting (hopefully) musings about the day-to-day life of a medstudent. In this regard I hope to create a narrative on par with that of "Vitum medicinus"; anyone who has not checked out this blog, please vindictively close mine now and get started on his/hers --it is awesome!
3. This blog will not be a melodramatic vomitus of the "profound" significance of anything. I will do my best to avoid using contrived phrases such as "one must always...".
4. This blog will include authentic anecdotes about the mistakes I make on my journey through medschool, as well as retrospective thoughts on what should have been done in the stead of whatever gross misconduct occurred. In this regard, I foresee this blog as having some potential for educational value.
5. This blog may inspire, I hope it will entertain, it will likely offend (for which I apologize in advance, but this is often the price of honesty).
I guess I will conclude with the reason I have started this blog, which is rather multi-faceted. Perhaps the most important reason for this blog is to document a path that I hope will be meaningful. I have always been fascinated by character "arcs". Someone starts "here", a bunch of stuff happens, and they end up "there". This blog is a way for me to document my arc, such that, in 10 years I can come back to this very post and see how self-absorbed I once was, and then relish on how self-effacing I have become.
Secondly, this blog has a protective function. When I found out I had gotten into medschool, I took it upon myself to read Samuel Shem's "The House of God". The most important thing I took away from the novel was the necessity of fighting off isolation during times of tribulation. Therefore, this blog is a method for me to stay connected without the hassle of actual face to face interaction (joke). That is the main reason I choose to blog rather than keep a personal journal.
Lastly, I have surveyed the vast variety of medical blogs out there. Many are excellent, and many are not excellent. I make no promise about which camp this blog will roam. What I can promise is the unique perspective with which I view the world. If you enjoy complex, dynamic characters, you may enjoy reading the blog of a person who thinks Hannibal Lecter is insanely cool (and 87.6% justified in symbolic cannabalism (not real cannabalism though, thats just crazy)). You may enjoy trying to reconcile how a person can be incessantly sardonic, yet sincerely empathetic. I can't promise I will never be verbose or abstruse, but I can promise that this blog will be authentic. For readers with IQ's below 146, this blog will challenge your views about the medical realm and all that it entails; for readers with IQ's above 146, go invent something.
I look forward to what is to come, and sharing it with everyone
MM
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