mongooseblog

first quarter review

Medicine, Ho!

One quarter down, five exams completed, five passing grades. So far, so good. P=MD. That doesn’t mean that it was easy (not that I was expecting it to be), but I could definitely do without that sense of uneasiness over the question of “did I pass?” after each exam, the likes of which haven’t been seen since organic chemistry (for which, in those days, the prescription was this drink). I don’t recall noticing it back in undergrad, but I suspect that’s because studying engineering exercises a completely different part of one’s brain (mmm…math). As a practicing engineer, life consisted of analysis and problem-solving (and let’s not forget the metric tons of documentation generated) instead of memorizing and regurgitating. And so, there’s a bit of an adjustment period. Eventually, I’ll get to use more of those brain muscles, but first I have to learn the language. And it is basically just that–you have to learn the alphabet, then simple words, then simple sentences, before you can start to begin to think critically.

(On the other hand, if I want to be really cynical, I could say that learning about the human body is like trying to reverse-engineer a system for which no one from the original design team is still employed and zero requirements or design documents exist and you’re like “who the hell designed this shit” and you have a gazillion customers with broken systems all demanding they be fixed and you can’t just tell them to buy the upgrade.)

But the mechanics of studying and doing well on exams are fairly straightforward. It’s simple enough to analyze what I’m doing wrong and devise a corrected plan of action. (Following through on that plan is another story.) I’d much rather deconstruct the psychological aspects of being a med student who went the non-traditional route. First, some words of wisdom (from an Internet board that shall go unidentified):

…I actually had a board member pause the interview just so he could advise me not to lose the identity I’ve developed (as a non-trad with a career) because apparently many non-trads “regress” (as he put it) once they’re in med school surrounded by much younger students.

For non-trads, the difficulty is that you’re not just developing your adult identity, you’re taking on a new adult identity on top of the one(s) that you already have.

I read these quotes at the start of the quarter, but it’s not until now that they’ve started to ring true. It’s all too easy (especially for someone who doesn’t look all that different from his new peers) to assimilate into the culture and thus feel like one’s identity is being lost. Maybe that’s why I feel the need to assert myself as that old fogey of an engineer every so often; but doing so may also have the detrimental effect of creating too much of a separation between my classmates and me, or perhaps coming off as having airs when that couldn’t be further from the truth. And sometimes it’s hard to contribute the perspective of someone who’s had a bit more time to percolate and has a bit more experience without sounding preachy or condescending. So, there’s a balance that must be struck.

I don’t even have a clue as of yet what this new adult identity is that I’m crafting.

But in the end, it’s just an interesting thought exercise that I won’t get any credit for. For now, the order of business is to relax, rest, and recharge, ready to hit the ground running when the next quarter begins. (And given that it’s the cardiovascular/pulmonary block, if I don’t ace it, I should just quit right then.) Here is one more quote I found hilarious:

But the life arc is undeniable. I couldn’t stay in a night club with 18 to 25 y/o’s with sh!tty music pumping unless I was seven different kinds of loaded. And I’m not into that anymore. So.

ten

September 11

Some things you don’t forget.

“Did you have classes on September 11?”

“Yup.”

“When were you supposed to be in at school?”

“I wanted to be there at 12:00.”

“What day was September 11?”

“Tuesday.”

“Did they cancel classes?”

“Eventually.”

 

Some things you can’t remember.

I can’t remember if I tried to call any of my friends to see if they were okay.

I can’t remember if I tried to call anyone, for that matter.

I can’t remember who called me or tried to call me.

I can’t remember whether anyone who tried to call would have been able to reach me, anyway.

I can’t remember when I finally turned off the TV.

I can’t remember when they let us back below 14th Street.

I can’t remember when I finally let myself go below Houston Street.

 

Some things you wish were not even a dream.

i can’t remember why she asked

Medicine, Ho!

“What are you going to do when a patient dies?” Vicky, the M4 I was pseudo-shadowing, asked me. Wasting no time in lobbing the hard questions at the not-quite-a-first-year, I see. And one who hasn’t yet fully wrapped his head around the fact that he’s no longer an engineer, but a doctor-to-be…

It’s not that I’m naive about the sadder aspects of my new profession, nor that I’m a stranger to death. I just think it’s one of those things that you can’t fully anticipate nor fully prepare for. And her question certainly wasn’t something I was expecting at a health fair for school kids.

I stood in silent contemplation for a few moments; but I dare say I wouldn’t actually be able to answer her until I’m actually faced with it.

with only thirty days to go

life, Reflections

I never made much of an express effort to get to know Wisconsin. I didn’t want to waste time dating it if I didn’t think I was in it for the long haul, didn’t want to get attached. I’m only passing through, I thought to myself. Then, at some point in these last almost-eight years, these surroundings became so familiar, these people I have met have become such fixtures in my life, as to tinge this long-anticipated departure with a hint of sadness.

I’m moving back home, but in a way, I’m also leaving home.

project 365: epilogue

life, Reflections

(365/365)

On my last day of being a twentysomething, I thought perhaps I should try to make the 365th photograph somehow meaningful. I drove through the neighborhoods in which I spent my childhood, thinking the familiar might spur my imagination, trying to picture in my mind that last image…eventually coming to the conclusion that I was trying too hard. This wasn’t what I had set out to do one year ago. A photograph I took on that day of an El station seemed to connect nicely with the first photograph I took for the project; but after some thought I figured that I already had enough images of public transportation. In the end, this is what I chose to represent this day, ordinary on one level but with some serendipitous significance, hints of a tangential nature to an as-yet unwritten future. That this project concluded in the same city where it began is no accident; it is the city of my birth, the city I think will always be home.

In between, it was not altogether uninteresting; though there were times where the decidedly uninspired photographs reflected the ordinary, mundane days underlying them, quite a bit happened on both ends of the emotional spectrum. 29 was not without its moments of sorrow and grief, losing an old friend to cancer and having another friend go through a tragedy of his own, but in the realm of things I can control, I can say that 29 was the year I finally, successfully, made my ultimate career move. I think that this year, straddling two chapters of my life as it were, catalyzed a fair amount of introspection that no doubt informed many of the photographs that made it into the project.

On a personal level, I like to think I’ve managed to improve my skills a little along the way and also inject some narrative into the imagery. Having a decent camera on the iPhone helped immensely in keeping up with the demand of generating a photograph each day; using something with considerably fewer controls than what I’m used to certainly forced a different dimension of creativity.

When I began, I said that if I could say I lived and experienced each moment of every day, then I will have been successful. I dare say this to be true. To those who followed this project to its end and offered your comments and support, you have my thanks.

raison d’être

Medicine, Ho!, Reflections

“Why did you decide to be a doctor?” she asked. “And don’t tell me you wanted to help people.”

I was exhausted. I sat on the edge of Mandi’s bed. “It’s true,” I said. “I want to help people.”

“Ha!” She poked a mound of vanilla pudding with a fork. “That’s what they all say.”

–“A Fire, Deliberately Set,” Peggy Sarjeant

Continue reading “raison d’être” →

what kind of fortnight has it been

life, Medicine, Ho!, Reflections

(with apologies to Aaron Sorkin)

Even as I charged ahead towards a new future in my trips to Boston and DC, in my visits with old high school and college friends I was reminded of an altogether different past—a past in which I envisioned something completely different than the path I now find myself following, a future characterized by Fourier transforms and Smith charts. Delighted as regions of my brain probably last exercised in college sprang back into action talking shop with Amanda and John the electrical engineers and Angela the computer engineer, I nonetheless felt wistful at leaving all of that behind. At the same time, in Donna the teacher, and in other classmates and friends who went onto separate careers, I found some reassurance.

Technology never stopped exciting me. Math and physics still excite me. But are they enough to make me want to wake up in the morning?

Only if I can directly help someone by doing it.

I’ll just have to find some way to be an EE-doc, I guess.

3Q29 report

life, Medicine, Ho!

(274/365)

It’s probably a good sign that I haven’t felt much need to post anything lately. Were it not for the end of the third quarter of year 29, I might have let November go without a post and kept October company.

Probably all that needs to be noted (and it’s old news for anyone keeping up with my Facebook status updates) is that my long national nightmare of disposable income now definitely has an end date (see the Countdown to Freedom in the blog sidebar). The anxiety of “will I get in somewhere” has since been replaced by “will I have a choice of where to go,” which is at least less stress-inducing but still admittedly tied to feelings of self-worth, however irrational it may be—yes, the applicant pool is beyond saturated with qualified candidates, but I wouldn’t be human if I said my ego doesn’t bruise at least somewhat from rejection.

I suppose all that’s left for this last quarter before I turn 30 is to have fun and enjoy it, but I’m hard pressed to remember a winter that wasn’t colored with some sort of melancholia…

musical influences

Memory Lane

I had no idea what I was agreeing to, but when Swanson invited me to go with him to a screening of Stop Making Sense sometime my sophomore year I think it was, I said sure, why not. Thus do I credit him with introducing me to The Talking Heads. I can’t be certain, but he probably also had a hand in my ownership of Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. He most definitely introduced me to Steve Goodman, however.

Later on through his intervention would he also introduce me to Larry Swenson and Lee Murdock.