Sunday, 17 May 2009

• Vale, Vale, Schola Mea!

  ---

  Tomorrow is my hooding ceremony as well as begins my new life as an intern, and I am happy beyond words.  With bittersweet excitement, I recount the past four years of my life in medical school:

   

  First Year:  I had no idea what I was in for and spent most of my time trying to keep up with school-work.  I gained ten pounds.  I studied for nearly ten hours a day.  Neurology almost killed me.  I had no idea what to read nor how.  I saw the dismal 2005 match list.  I began to realize that a large portion of my classmates are morons. 

  

   

  My depression began.

   

  

   

  Second Year:  For nearly a year, I completely blew off all my schoolwork to study for boards.  I was paranoid of failing the USMLE.  My distaste for my classmates grew, and my depression got worse.  I gave my life to Dr. Goljan, and began failing some of my school’s exams just so that I could devote more time to studying for the USMLE.  I gained another ten pounds.  I finally took the USMLE and rocked it.  My depression subsided, until…

  

   

  Third Year:  Suffer me, if you will, to break this one down by rotation-

  Surgery – By no form of exaggeration, the absolute worst experience of my life.  I despised the residents, I loathed the attendings, and I abhorred my fellow students.  The surgery residents at my particular hospital composed the biggest rat nest of brainless, incompetent, and arrogant shit-rags, who managed to compensate for their blatant and disturbing lack of knowledge with a wealth of near-malicious bedside manner and dangerous perioperative incidents, I have ever met.  I can’t believe those idiots were allowed anywhere near a patient, let alone a bovie.  The hours were long, the teaching was absent, and the malicious egos were abundant.  

  Family Practice – 1. Pharmaceutical dinners 2. Dr. Biostats teaching me how to read and search medical literature.  Nice.

  

  Pediatrics – It was an excellent rotation, and I enjoyed the opportunity to put my own knowledge and diagnostic skills up against those of Cornell students.

  OBGYN – What can I say?  The vagina has indeed earned my respect.  And being the first to hold a newborn and welcome it into the world is very…very…touching.

  

  Psychiatry – Dr. C. is my homeboy!

  

  Medicine – A totally worthless waste of three months, but, unlike surgery, at least the residents leave you alone, although having to deal with some of those Emergency docs with obnoxious professional esteem issues does get grating after the second month.

  

   

   

  Fourth Year:  I took USMLE step 2 and rotated at some real hospitals, where I finally got the learning experiences in medicine and surgery that I expected at a university hospital.  The hours were just as long, the patient population was just as underprivileged, the scutwork was just as bad, and I loved every second of it.  I was pushed to my full potential and beyond, and I feel that I performed admirably, in retrospect.  Living in Brooklyn for four months, however, is another story.  I hate Brooklyn with a passion, and I am overjoyed that I will never have to return to that shithole:

   

   

  On March 19^th, my four-year depression finally subsided, as I found out that I matched into a competitive allopathic university program.  And then it happened…I was happy…finally happy.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  The sun blazed and hummed, the sky was bluer, the breeze was sweeter, and the birds took to song again.  I went to LA, partied a lot, mastered very difficult social skills in high-pressure environments, and dated some of the most beautiful women I’d ever met.  I lost twenty five pounds, gained fifteen back in muscle, got myself a six-pack, perfected my butterfly stroke, and began to run every day at a high sprint on the treadmill for forty minutes.  I’ve also begun house hunting, and expect to be a homeowner by the end of this year.

   

  If you search back to the very first entry that I made in my blog on Christmas, 2005 (not that you would, although I did, as that which pertains to myself is, of course, of great interest to me even though it may no be to you) you will see the extent to which I’ve changed and grown.  My outlook and my language are vastly different.  This is not to say I’ve become stupider, unacademic, illiterate, nor extroverted, no, I’ve simply become…centered.  And I no longer have anything to prove.

   

  “Hemmingway?” you ask.

   

  Somewhat, I reply. 

   

  I had been struggling in my own head for years, questing for that elusive antithesis, looping thoughts in my head.  And the moment I stopped looking, the moment I was list to live life and not to analyze it, my antithesis found me…oh, that philosophical irony…it gets you every time.

   

  Tomorrow, when put on my cap and gown and graduate, I will achieve my antithesis.

   

   

  • 9:03 PM
  • 16 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 1 Comment