Captain of the Team

So much has changed since we moved here.  We are different people, a different family moving back then we were when we moved here.  Somehow I've grown into becoming a father and a doctor, both seemingly impossible feats to a 20 year old me.  

On the doctor side of things, one of the things that scared me the most when I received my medical school acceptance letter was that right then I knew that some way, some how, for me to succeed I'd have to find the confidence and wisdom to lead people, to be a leader.  That is a scary thought to a guy who was consistently picked last on every sports team ever concocted.  I'd pushed myself to run for different positions in college, knowing I had to at least try and be "social", but I was always a failure.  So why did I place myself in a position where I knew I would have to become something I most definitely wasn't...I was young and stupid mostly and really hadn't thought it through.  Luckily, someone upstairs saw me through it.  Looking back at that timid kid who couldn't climb his way to the top of the pile.  My advice to myself would have been to fake confidence and have faith that you are smarter than you think you are.  To smile like a moron and laugh hard at people's jokes. To save up favors like people save up money. To play the game people play and when push comes to shove, if you have to be the leader and someone challenges you, you put them in the dirt (figuratively, not literally).  One of the things I hadn't quite thought through was that I somehow believed I could go through this and not be changed by it.  I walked into the supermarket yesterday and a lady was down on the ground having a seizure, people gathered all around her, so you could barely see her. The college student me would have watched quietly at the back, the medical student me would have done the same even if he knew they were doing something stupid, but the doctor me cuts the crowd and takes control of the situation.  It just amazes me, how training can make you do something so counter to your instincts, how you can mold yourself into a different person if the situation demands.  

Every now and again I meet someone or a friend of someone who is going to medical school.  There is an instant feeling of wanting to tell them what awaits, to make them understand the weight of that decision, the change that they will bring about on themselves and others around them, but you really can't convey something like that and even if you could it would fall on def ears, they often are so determined.  Instead all I can typically muster up is, "You poor bastard".  :)

Newbie-Doc

Am I really an Attending now?

Doctor

I've been two things really my entire life, an artist and a thinker.  I wouldn't say I was particularly great at either, but if I had to describe myself that is what I am, I don't think anyone could argue that.  I remember sometimes taking months to draw a picture, it would start out as a rough sketch and progress to something resembling reality.  Mark by mark on my paper, the image would materialize as if from a fog, as though it had been there all along, just hidden.  A little over a month ago now, I took on a project unlike anything I've created before, but not dissimilar in a way to anything I ever undertake.  It started very raw and it slowly is reaching toward it's final state, whatever that is, mark by thoughtful mark on my chosen canvas.  I was at the fridge, getting a drink this evening, and in a spur of random thought, wondered why I had taken on a project, especially one as vexing as this, after avoiding any and all projects for roughly 7 years...with quick self-realization and a smirk I realized I had never stopped taking them on, I simply was in need of another.  Though I didn't "draw" it in the strictest sense in two months time my training will be complete, and yet another piece of paper will hang from my wall.

Newbie Doc

My Wife/Doctor

Just a quick post to brag about my wife.  I wrote awhile back about passing my in-training exams for the first time after taking it for three years, how hard they are and how great that is.  When my wife took her first in-training exam for family medicine at her residency, she (understatedly) told me that she did very well.  Back when she first told me about how well she did, all she said was that everybody was really surprised at how amazing she did on it, that she scored in a very narrow percentile of all 1st years in the nation.  What I didn't realize (and she didn't tell me) until today was not only did she do "well", but that she had passed her test on her first year, which is basically unheard of.  Not only that but she goes on to lament (she's actually complaining) that over the passed 3 years she has gotten worse at the test and now has scored 40 points lower than when she was an intern...yet when I ask her if she is passing, her answer is still yes!  Back in medical school, you couldn't beat my wife at a test, she was straight A's, which is incredibly hard (not just for me, for anyone)...I shouldn't be surprised, but that's a killer test to slap down your first year without any training, quite an accomplishment. 

A quick intro to medical school testing.

SAT/ACT = College Entrance Exams
MCAT = Medical School Entrance Exam - taken 3rd year of college
USMLE Boards Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 = M.D. Exam - 4 separate tests taken throughout medical school and 1 year after medical school, a total of ~24 hours of testing.
Specialty Boards = Certifies you as capable to care for patients in a particular specialty (ie.Pediatrics)

The specialty boards costs between 1-2 grand depending on the specialty and last 8 hours.  If you fail you don't get your money back and they are VERY hard, so residencies across the nation (whether it be surgery or pediatrics) have each class of interns take an in-training exam, that scores you against all other peers in the nation and tells you your chances of passing the real exam at the end of 3 years.  My chances for passing the real test, according to my scores on the last test, are about 95%.  My wife's chances are likely somewhere around 100%, if she has passed it all three years without any studying. 

Just between you and me, I don't know what my wife sees in those whining adult patients, the kids of this world are missing out on a phenomenal doctor. :)

Newbie Doc