my journey through medical school, residency, and life.
A while back I wrote (here) that I would be viewing an autopsy. After scheduling myself to view one on two prior occasions, I was finally able to go to the County Coroner’s office to see an autopsy.
I wrote a short post about my experience and it is now online at The Differential.
Check it out by clicking the logo below:
I asked my cousin (and if you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that my cousin is also a classmate of mine) this question, “If someone were to pay you to leave medical school, and you could never come back, how much money would it have to be?”
She thought for a while, and, instead of answering me with a straight answer, she asked me how much it would take for me to walk away.
I quickly replied, “$100 million.”
I’m not sure if she laughed or chuckled. My memory is a bit hazy on that part. But she said she’d probably do it for a “little less.” But upon pressing her about what “a little less” meant, I think she said $50 million. She did say, however, that she’d probably always wonder “What if?’ about staying in medical school.
Ideally someone would offer me $100 million to take and I could stay in medical school too. But if the condition was that I walk away and never return to med school… Well, I don’t think I’d have any qualms about that.
Does that make me any less of a medical student? Does it reflect poorly on me?
I wonder because I asked another classmate the same question. Her reply was a lighting-fast, “You couldn’t pay me to leave. You’d have to kick me out.”
Her answer left me speechless. Well kind of… I did manage to say, “Oh… that’s cool.”
I just came home from the grocery store because I needed to buy some bread. So I walked in, picked up a bag of 6 rolls and then looked for a cashier. But there were only two cashiers working. As I looked at aisle one I saw a cart that was packed with food. You’d have thought she was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner.
I turned around and got in line at aisle ten. This was the 15-items-or-less line. But it had quite a number of people. Just as I got in line, I heard some older (and by older, I mean older than me) lady call out to me. Turning around I saw that she was about to push her cart into a lane that was just opening. But, noticing I only had one item, she called me over to go ahead of her.
And I drove home thinking, “I like nice people.”
Source: MSNBC.com: Young doctors graduate in Somalia
I just read this article on MSNBC (link above). It’s pretty crazy. And I thought medical school was hard for me. The article tells of 20 men and women who are the first medical school graduates in the country of Somalia in almost two decades.
The students literally risked their lives to attend medical school. One student recounts becoming trapped under crossfire almost seven times during his commutes to the university. Another two of their classmates were actually gunned down recently.
What a story of dedication. I don’t think I would have the will or the passion to attend medical school in those types of conditions.
I admire these people. I don’t know what motivated them. Maybe they all have a desire to help the thousands of Somalis that are in desperate need of healthcare. Maybe each person found their strength in different places. But they are now equipped to help fellow-countrymen in the war-torn country of Somalia.
Sometimes I wish that my childhood was filled with more academic failures. I’m not trying to sound arrogant or anything. Medical school, I have found, is one of the most humbling experiences one can go through. At this point, I don’t think I’m a genius at all. But, I suppose one could say that life is one long, humbling experience as well.
Occasionally I’ve been asked, “Are you smart?” The question doesn’t really make any sense to me, and I don’t know why people ask it. It’s probably a question better suited to sort out the arrogant from the humble. But what has become my customary reply to this question is, “I used to believe I was smart. And then I started Kindergarten.”
It is no secret that the majority of medical students performed very well during elementary and/or high school. (For traditional students, college is pretty much a given because college performance plays a large role in medical school acceptance.) And this is a very good thing. But because of past performance, there is an added pressure to continue to do well.
The bright students in elementary school are expected to do well in high school. Brilliant high schoolers are expected to make it into good colleges/universities where they will choose from among the toughest fields of study so that they can accomplish great things.
What kind of great things? How about significantly contributing to society? Or changing the world?
Talk about pressure…
And so, sometimes I wish…
I recently had a conversation with my cousin (who also happens to be my classmate). The conversation was sandwiched between a couple hours of studying about ischemic heart disease, vascular disease, valvular disease, and congenital heart diseases. We were preparing for a Pathology lab where we were scheduled to do some “team-based learning.” (These team-based sessions involve working in groups of five to figure out a diagnosis based on a small clinical vignettes. Once the diagnosis is obtained we usually have to figure out the mechanisms leading to the condition.)
The conversation took place right after I showed her a sample test that applicants to the San Francisco Police Department can download at the department website. The first few sections were really simple and we skimmed through right through it. It felt easy. (At least the first sections felt easy. There was at least one section towards the end that looked pretty tricky.)
I’m not sure who first verbalized it, but we noted how it had been a long time since we had walked into an exam feeling fully confident in what we knew and of what the outcome would be. So far in medical school it hasn’t mattered how much I have spent preparing for an exam. I have never walked into a test site feeling like I know everything as well as I should. Maybe that one student that keeps scoring between 98-100% knows how that feels, but I sure don’t. And that is a very frustrating thing.
As I have written before, I blog weekly at Medscape’s The Differential. Originally I thought I would put up a notification post whenever one of my submissions was uploaded. But I decided to just make one page to keep track of it all. For the past couple days I have been putting together a page that will index all of my Differential posts.
Clicking The Differential on the tab above (between Privacy Policy and Contact Me) will take you to this new page. Newest posts are listed at the top. I have the date, title, and short description of the post.
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