Newbie Doc
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Update
Newbie Doc
Click on the picture if you want to zoom in on it.
Jumping Rails
I'm taking a long deep breath...I'm nervous. It's how I am every time I get ready for that "BAD" rotation. Wards (Inpatient General Pediatrics) which is my next rotation, starts on Monday and is notorious for "breaking" interns and students. You can send the most laid back, unphasable intern into Wards at my hospital and you will end up with a puddle of exhausted goo by the end of the rotation, where once you had an energetic, optimistic doc.
In life you run into these things that have a lot of "hype", that are ridiculously difficult (so they say). As an intern here at my hospital this is just something I'm going to have to do, an obstacle, a challenge. Earlier in life, things like these are an option, they are "rails". I think it was in college sociology where I first found a name for this, it's called "railing". Maybe a really smart, privileged person doesn't run into any of these "rails", but regular people run into them all the time. Have you ever tried to do something in life that someone tried to stop you from doing, because it was too hard?
In third grade they had these reading groups; one, two, and three. Group one had the fastest readers, three had the slowest readers, and two was somewhere in between. I was in group two. I asked the teacher how the groups were chosen and her answer really made me feel like crap...I think everyone can relate to being told they aren't good enough (whatever that means). That night I talked to my parents about it and the next day I asked my teacher to be moved into group one, she was annoyed and told me she was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but she agreed to let me try. At first I read a lot of words wrong, trying to go so fast and I even remember at one point they all laughed at me because I couldn't pronounce the word "snarky" correctly. I ran out crying that day and even considered going back to group two, but I'd put myself "out there", I couldn't just quit, and I wasn't about to give them the satisfaction. I told myself that eventually I would get through this and before I knew it I had finished the year and could read as fast as any...honestly to this day I would say my skill in reading is one of my greatest assets.
Years later, I was in high school and the teacher of my pre-algebra class informed us that, at the end of the year, if any of us had made good enough grades in her class that they would be eligible to take, not one, but two math classes the next year, Algebra and Geometry....some of you reading this are talented at math...but I'm not, I have to think long and hard to perform even average mathematics. I barely got a B in pre-algebra, but it was enough to go for it...so I did. This time it wasn't my teachers telling me not to do it, it was my classmates. My peers told me I was going to "melt down" and I wouldn't be able to "cut it". I remember being really scared, with everyone I knew telling me I would fail...but if I backed down then I would automatically do so and simultaneously prove that they were all right. So after all other eligible students had backed down, it left only me, a student that was barely eligible for this and probably too stupid to know that he couldn't do it...being to stupid to know any better I went for it. I'd love to tell you all that I sailed through it, but that's just not true, it was a pain in the @$$ and I had to grind it out every inch of the way. To my amazement though, I survived...I didn't kill myself as some of my class mates had inferred I would and even more amazing still was that I got two B's in those classes (Not the best of the best, but I had worked hard and I was really proud of those two letters).
Now I'm in college, half-way through the first semester. I'm making C's and D's in my classes...maybe even an F in there somewhere. Being a stupid kid, totally naive I tell my adviser that I'm thinking about going to medical school and becoming a doctor, he doesn't laugh in my face, but if he had I think that would have been better. The way he dismissively said, "You don't have the grades." had an undertone of, "You wouldn't cut it...You'd melt down...You're not good enough". That was all I needed to get me started, I went to a friend that was making straight A's and asked how he was doing it. From then on, I copied his every habit and after that I didn't make less than an A minus...even in my Math courses. Saying it like that sounds simple...maybe making an A in one class is simple, but maintaining that level of performance for me over the next 4 years in a world of college distraction was anything but simple. There were friends that I had to quit hanging out with because they could not or would not understand what I was trying to do and kept trying to drag me away from it. I missed out on some important memories too, I really regret not getting to see my baby brother right after he was born, but I had a test and I took it THAT seriously (I know it sounds pretty lame now, but I was crazy focused on my goal). In the end I finished college with a GPA as close to a 4.0 as you could get, not perfect since I had screwed up my first semester, but with a very acceptable MCAT score (the entrance exam for medical school) I was a solid candidate that ended up getting in without too much of a fight (that's another story for another blog post).
The long and skinny of this whole thing is, everyone experiences these "rails" throughout every stage of life. Some people go with the flow and follow them where they lead, others jump them every chance they get...neither way is necessarily wrong; you can jump the wrong rail and get pancaked by a train and, conversely, you can follow a rail straight into a deep dark tunnel without end...those choices are left up to you and you alone, but for me I've gained so much by jumping those rails. This guy, Robert Frost, gets quoted every five seconds in medical school and residency and although by now hearing another doctor quote it is cliche, I think you'd be hard pressed to say what he says any better, which is probably why it gets cited so frequently.
Newbie Doc
I looked for a picture of a "Yellow Wood" road, but it looked to "easy". The path I'm talking about scares you...but you do it anyway.
In life you run into these things that have a lot of "hype", that are ridiculously difficult (so they say). As an intern here at my hospital this is just something I'm going to have to do, an obstacle, a challenge. Earlier in life, things like these are an option, they are "rails". I think it was in college sociology where I first found a name for this, it's called "railing". Maybe a really smart, privileged person doesn't run into any of these "rails", but regular people run into them all the time. Have you ever tried to do something in life that someone tried to stop you from doing, because it was too hard?
In third grade they had these reading groups; one, two, and three. Group one had the fastest readers, three had the slowest readers, and two was somewhere in between. I was in group two. I asked the teacher how the groups were chosen and her answer really made me feel like crap...I think everyone can relate to being told they aren't good enough (whatever that means). That night I talked to my parents about it and the next day I asked my teacher to be moved into group one, she was annoyed and told me she was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but she agreed to let me try. At first I read a lot of words wrong, trying to go so fast and I even remember at one point they all laughed at me because I couldn't pronounce the word "snarky" correctly. I ran out crying that day and even considered going back to group two, but I'd put myself "out there", I couldn't just quit, and I wasn't about to give them the satisfaction. I told myself that eventually I would get through this and before I knew it I had finished the year and could read as fast as any...honestly to this day I would say my skill in reading is one of my greatest assets.
Years later, I was in high school and the teacher of my pre-algebra class informed us that, at the end of the year, if any of us had made good enough grades in her class that they would be eligible to take, not one, but two math classes the next year, Algebra and Geometry....some of you reading this are talented at math...but I'm not, I have to think long and hard to perform even average mathematics. I barely got a B in pre-algebra, but it was enough to go for it...so I did. This time it wasn't my teachers telling me not to do it, it was my classmates. My peers told me I was going to "melt down" and I wouldn't be able to "cut it". I remember being really scared, with everyone I knew telling me I would fail...but if I backed down then I would automatically do so and simultaneously prove that they were all right. So after all other eligible students had backed down, it left only me, a student that was barely eligible for this and probably too stupid to know that he couldn't do it...being to stupid to know any better I went for it. I'd love to tell you all that I sailed through it, but that's just not true, it was a pain in the @$$ and I had to grind it out every inch of the way. To my amazement though, I survived...I didn't kill myself as some of my class mates had inferred I would and even more amazing still was that I got two B's in those classes (Not the best of the best, but I had worked hard and I was really proud of those two letters).
Now I'm in college, half-way through the first semester. I'm making C's and D's in my classes...maybe even an F in there somewhere. Being a stupid kid, totally naive I tell my adviser that I'm thinking about going to medical school and becoming a doctor, he doesn't laugh in my face, but if he had I think that would have been better. The way he dismissively said, "You don't have the grades." had an undertone of, "You wouldn't cut it...You'd melt down...You're not good enough". That was all I needed to get me started, I went to a friend that was making straight A's and asked how he was doing it. From then on, I copied his every habit and after that I didn't make less than an A minus...even in my Math courses. Saying it like that sounds simple...maybe making an A in one class is simple, but maintaining that level of performance for me over the next 4 years in a world of college distraction was anything but simple. There were friends that I had to quit hanging out with because they could not or would not understand what I was trying to do and kept trying to drag me away from it. I missed out on some important memories too, I really regret not getting to see my baby brother right after he was born, but I had a test and I took it THAT seriously (I know it sounds pretty lame now, but I was crazy focused on my goal). In the end I finished college with a GPA as close to a 4.0 as you could get, not perfect since I had screwed up my first semester, but with a very acceptable MCAT score (the entrance exam for medical school) I was a solid candidate that ended up getting in without too much of a fight (that's another story for another blog post).
The long and skinny of this whole thing is, everyone experiences these "rails" throughout every stage of life. Some people go with the flow and follow them where they lead, others jump them every chance they get...neither way is necessarily wrong; you can jump the wrong rail and get pancaked by a train and, conversely, you can follow a rail straight into a deep dark tunnel without end...those choices are left up to you and you alone, but for me I've gained so much by jumping those rails. This guy, Robert Frost, gets quoted every five seconds in medical school and residency and although by now hearing another doctor quote it is cliche, I think you'd be hard pressed to say what he says any better, which is probably why it gets cited so frequently.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Newbie Doc
I looked for a picture of a "Yellow Wood" road, but it looked to "easy". The path I'm talking about scares you...but you do it anyway.
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