some friendships we fall into slowly, almost magnetically. others require us to decide: yes, I will call you friend. You will be my [fill in activity of choice] buddy. You will be who I cry to when I can't study anymore; you in the pink, you will go with me to find entertaining ways to pass my time. You will call me friend even though "friend" may last only until the next communication.
It is now that I find my friends flung into my life, placed gently, and decided upon as a recourse to action much like rubbing a paperclip with an old magnet.
Friends.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Goals and dreams. well, just goals for now.
I've decided that I need to savor the small victories in life. Checking off my to-do list, actually styling my hair well, getting through all four classtime lectures without having needing to leave the room. Waking up and moving my lugubrious self out of bed. These are small victories-- and they are well worth celebrating!
Friday, September 7, 2007
My brain. online. officially.
September 8, 2007. Over one month into my second year of medical school and still I feel a disconnect with everyday life. Where has my brain gone for the last year and a half (minus the one month of travel/vacation)? Maybe I'm pulling a derealization defense response to cope with the overwhelming nature of medical school.
Medical school provides fodder for the anthropologist. We populate a sub-culture of nerds-who-think-we're-well-rounded or who were well-rounded until med school forced them to sacrifice their full self to focus only on their medical self. We are a sub-culture of workaholics, perfectionists, altruists, scientists (whatever that really means), and--hopefully--humanists. At least we were when we started.
Someone tell me-- is it a normal part of aging to lose passion and drive? Everyone talks about getting "jaded," but is that a useful defense against ignorance or a damaging process which we should fight with constant self-motivation?
If the former, then humanism will leave medicine as the medical school system continues to manufacture, not nurture, future doctors. If the latter, then medical schools (at least the ones I'm familiar with) should re-evaluate the amount of time spent by students in passive learning and the ways in which professors model behaviors towards future patients. There must be a transition-- a line-- between the thought process of the usually idealistic, compassionate medical student and the incredibly exhausted, disease-focused intern. I intend to discover this transition and push it back as far as possible. Let's see what happens....
Medical school provides fodder for the anthropologist. We populate a sub-culture of nerds-who-think-we're-well-rounded or who were well-rounded until med school forced them to sacrifice their full self to focus only on their medical self. We are a sub-culture of workaholics, perfectionists, altruists, scientists (whatever that really means), and--hopefully--humanists. At least we were when we started.
Someone tell me-- is it a normal part of aging to lose passion and drive? Everyone talks about getting "jaded," but is that a useful defense against ignorance or a damaging process which we should fight with constant self-motivation?
If the former, then humanism will leave medicine as the medical school system continues to manufacture, not nurture, future doctors. If the latter, then medical schools (at least the ones I'm familiar with) should re-evaluate the amount of time spent by students in passive learning and the ways in which professors model behaviors towards future patients. There must be a transition-- a line-- between the thought process of the usually idealistic, compassionate medical student and the incredibly exhausted, disease-focused intern. I intend to discover this transition and push it back as far as possible. Let's see what happens....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)