Soooo much time for nothing!

So I suddenly realized recently that medical students actually have a lot of down-time to do... well, to do nothing, if they wanted. Some kids are out partying, others are doing research or getting a Masters in Public Health, but I've decided to use my down-time to do nothing. I suppose I could study more, but who really studies 8 hours a day? And really, who NEEDS to study 8 hours a day? If you studied 8 hours a day, you would basically have to make 100% on everything or else I would just assume you're an idiot because nobody should require that much time to understand stuff.

I really need a hobby. Suggestions, anyone? I've started watching Lost, which has been fruitful thus far (I just started season 3), but is quickly losing its appeal. I'm going to the gym more, but that only occupies an hour of my day and it's not the most enjoyable endeavor. I've thought about learning how to cook, but I can't bear the thought of driving to the grocery store more than once every other week and I'm pretty sure I would fail and waste a lot of food. I do have a large stack of books I want to read on my bookcase, but I read so much for school, they don't look appealing anymore. Oh, and I've tried the whole "knitting" thing many times in the past and that has never caught on.

It's times like this when I wish Tom were here. A boyfriend is pretty much the best hobby. I miss Dallas and my lifestyle there. It was so effortless and blissful.

Wow, I am in desperate need of a hobby.

International medical service trips

Everyone has this ideal about doctors. Or rather, those people who do not understand anything at all about the medical profession have this ideal about doctors. Doctors are supposed to be caring, passionate people who lovingly tend to the sick and wake up at 1am to do surgeries and see ill patients. The more I see real doctors, the less I actually believe that ideal is true. Or anywhere near the truth.

I struggle a lot over what doctors should do, how they should be compensated, what their moral obligations are. I'm not sure how many other medical students ponder over this, but I think I'll be posting a lot about this topic in the future. It's no secret that the most competitive fields are those that are, well, more useless than the others. Why is it that everybody wants to do dermatology rather than primary care? Why do people want to do radiology rather than family medicine?

Why do people want to practice medicine abroad when there is such a great need here at home?

It seems like everybody I've talked to wants to go practice medicine abroad. Whether it's a 2-week winter trip to Africa or a 4-week summer trip to South America, everybody here wants to go to a trip to some far-away "poor" country and "do some good." I'm exceedingly morally torn about these service trips. Students go to these places for a limited time and (in my opinion) do limited good. They mostly do things like, "educational classes" and "check-ups" for the local population with little to no sustained development in any area. And then they come back home and study like crazy so they can get into competitive specialties like orthopedic surgery so they can presumably go help somebody with a broken foot (and make half a mil doing it).

I've asked people why they want to practice medicine abroad or why they want to do these trips and they look at me all funny and ask, "why not? Don't you want to?" as if doing one of these trips is the most natural thing a medical student can do. It seems to me like there are about a million things a medical student could do here in the United States that could benefit many, many more people.

I guess what really bothers me is that... students go on these trips to stroke their moral ego. That is to say, they go and people say, "oh look, what a kind person you are! You went to AFRICA and helped out all those poor people!" And then these same students turn around and spend their career doing something that simply makes them a lot of money. I think the truly morally commendable thing to do as a physician would be to be a primary care physician. This country is in dire need of them and yet, nobody wants to do it. Why is that?

I feel like people should strive to be consistent in their ideals and their actions. If you know and you say that money, status, and fortune are your priorities, I have no problem with you gunning to be an anesthesiologist. But if you say you want to "help people" and do these peripheral things that help get you into competitive programs just so that 10 years later, you can be a 500k/year radiation oncologist, I'm going to have a problem with it. I don't believe there's anything wrong with wanting to make money. Or wanting fame and future. But hiding these true motivations with feigned moral righteousness is just wrong.

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What I'm studying now: nucleotide excision repair

In your previous life...

Surgeons are interesting people. I hate the word "interesting" because it is so very vague and nondescriptive but what can I say, I'm a hypocrit and like using bad words. Anyway, I say this because everything that the administrators and other doctors tell me about medicine and medical school and how to be a good doctor is nearly always the very opposite of what surgeons say. Weird, isn't it?

One phrase I've heard over and over again in my anatomy lectures (taught by ex-surgeons) is this phrase, "In your previous life..." As if to say, once you've entered the medical profession, whatever happened so far in your life isn't really your life anymore. It's like this running theme in class.

It's odd because, well, every single medical school administrator, dean, vice-dean, student, doctor, etc etc, anywhere in the United States (at least 99% of them) will tell you that you should continue doing what you love to do in medical school and that becoming a physician doesn't mean you need to give up whatever you once enjoyed. Clearly, this is not the case for surgeons...

On the other hand, I guess it's a useful phrase and an accurate comparison because a lot of the lay medically-related terminology aren't accurate or don't apply anymore. For example, today, we learned that the "arm" as normal people will call it, is actually the "upper limb." The arm in anatomy is actually only the upper part of the arm. Another example: the terms, "ruptured disc" and "torn disc," are actually technically, "herniated discs."

I like to think that going to medical school is simply a step in my career path. Certainly, it's like opening the doors to a wonderous museum in which you MUST MEMORIZE EVERYTHING IN THE MUSEUM and that revolutionizes the way you think about the human body, health, and healthcare, but still... just a step. Like getting a promotion. Or getting a masters. Or something.

I haven't entired ruled out surgery (particularly because I have yet to experience it), but it doesn't look promising for me...

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What I'm studying: coracoid process