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Goodbye 2007: Reflections & Resolutions

December 31, 2007 by 3 Comments

Goodbye 2007. In a few hours the year 2007 will be gone forever. Well, from the pictures I’ve already seen online, 2007 has left a number of people on the other side of the world. Right now I’m starting this entry while sitting at church for an End of the Year service. Yes, I know, I should be listening intently to the speaker.

The speaker for the evening is talking about resolutions and such. Pretty typical end-of-year topic, right? Well he is speaking about seeking God first.

At the end of the year people often take time to examine their lives. They look back at the past year with 20/20 hindsight. It’s a time to learn from experience. They also eagerly look forward — some with hope, others with despair, but everyone with uncertainty of what tomorrow brings. Uncertainty, though, should not stop us from making plans. So resolutions are made. Often they’re quickly forgotten. In the spirit of the season, I’ll try my hand and creating some resolutions for myself.

  1. Be Intentional

    I’d like to be more intentional with my life. On the spiritual side, it is all too easy to be swept up with the fast pace of modern living. I’d like to be more intentional about my walk with Christ.

    I’d also like to be more intentional in my educational life. At times it was just too easy to become distracted by little things while studying. I need to be more intentional when studying. Study time is study time; ignore the unimportant when I’m with the books.

  2. Open My Eyes

    Tunnel vision is something I worry about. I’m worried that the next exam will consume me. I’m worried that medical school will change me — and not for the better. I hope I don’t graduate bitter about a broken healthcare system, cynical about life, and obsessed with making as much money as possible. What I need, I think, is to open my eyes more. I need to look around at those around me. There are people who are suffering. There are people who are hurting. I need to open my eyes so that I can remember the reasons I wanted to go to medical school. I need to open my eyes, and, as I heard one speaker say, witness the Divine in action.

So there it is. I distilled my resolutions to two little statements.

What are you planning for this next year?

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Oh, You’ll do fine

December 29, 2007 by 4 Comments

Note: While this was posted yesterday after about two weeks of Christmas break, I wrote most of it during the “heat of the moment.” I almost didn’t finish the thought/post, but I thought I’d include it as it was how I felt at the time during exam week. Honestly, I do appreciate the attempts to ease my anxiety. End

One of the phrases that I have come to despise hearing is “Oh, you’ll do fine.” It is often heard when someone is stressing out like crazy about an upcoming exam. Some well-meaning person will simply say, “Oh, you’ll do fine,” or some other variant. As if all the concern and stress over the exam is unfounded.

I appreciate the thought. I’m thankful that some one is attempting to make things better. But I really don’t know how “useful” that statement is. The statement in itself is not going to make me feel better. As well-meaning as it is, the reassurance does little in reducing my anxiety.

The fact is that medical school isn’t easy. The exams are hard. The pressure is heavy. The stress is real.

I’m not sure what to do about the pre-test anxiety. And I’m not sure about what to about the post-test anxiety (after taking an exam but before seeing my score) either.

And well since I’m not sure what I should do about the anxiety, I have no clue what other people can do to help.

But I think if a medical student complains to you about a really hard exam, don’t say, “Oh, you’ll do fine.”

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My Roller Coaster

December 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Simon says was fun for a little while. But looking back, I really don’t understand the appeal of being jerked around like that. That is, after all, what the game is all about — doing everything Simon says, no matter how ridiculous or absurd it may seem. Along the way it gets old. I have yet to see a group of adults playing “Simon Says” in the park. I definitely don’t see medical students playing that game during breaks between classes out on the grass.

Playing Simon Says is kind of like being jerked around by a little girl waving around her rag doll. Simon says put your hands up. Simon says put your hands down. It gets monotonous. It’s also tiring.

I feel like I’m getting jerked around. Sometimes the rag doll is swung up high and other times it drops low. It might be better to compare the experience to a roller coaster. At least the roller coaster analogy is more familiar to people than a swinging rag doll.

During my last exam week I heard the following conversation after arriving at the exam location:

Person 1: I got raped the other day.
Person 2: I’m gonna get raped twice today. [We had two tests that day]
Person 3: I’m just giving it to God. Because if God doesn’t intervene, then I’m screwed.

Note: No disrespect meant to any rape victims. “I got raped” is a phrase that has often been used by students. I don’t mean to imply that going through an exam is as bad as being raped. The phrase “getting raped” has been used because 1) it was a quote and 2) to describe the feelings going through a rough exam: a sense of being helplessly violated.

I wasn’t part of the conversation. I just overheard it because it was nearby. It made me grin. Not because I thought it was funny. I wasn’t being mean. No, I grinned because I knew the feeling.

On this roller coaster ride of medical school there are many lows. It can be easy to get down and discouraged. Hearing about the horrors of managed care, malpractice insurance, and a broken American healthcare system. Watching our educational debt accumulate. Being in a committed relationship with our textbooks. Seeing the top scores in the class.

But like a roller coaster there are the highs. There are times when the ride peaks through the clouds. There are the experiences with the patients — warm experiences we will never forget like the little children in pediatrics or the kind, heartfelt thank you of a senior citizen. And we need to hang on to those highs to carry us through the lows.

Early on in the school year we had a speaker talk about the wonderful opportunity we have here at medical school to witness the Divine in action. We learn about life. We learn about healing. Hopefully, we learn about changing lives as well.

It’s possible that I entered medical school naive. A lot of medical students probably do. After all, we are crazy enough to think we can change lives — that we can change the world.

Maybe that’s what we need, though. We need to be crazy. Back in the 1990s, Apple made an incredible TV Ad. It’s called Here’s to the Crazy Ones.

So here’s to the crazy ones; here’s to medical students the world over. To the ones who are crazy enough to go through medical school hoping they can change the world.

Enjoy the clip.

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
Are the ones who do.

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Surrounded by geniuses

December 13, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I am no gunner. Trust me. I might have a gunner-like thought once in a while. You might even say I have some gunner tendencies. But if MTV decided to make Real World: Medical School, it would be irrefutable: I am not a gunner. Because while I might like to have the highest score on the next exam, I simply don’t do enough to turn that passing desire into reality.

Some people do, though. There is always someone who scores the highest. Usually its kind of sickening to see what the top score is. I hope that whoever is getting the top scores is putting hours and hours into studying, preferably over 8 hours a day. If he or she is getting top scores with only one or two hours of studying a day… well I don’t want to know who it is.

Earlier in the year, when our scores were sent home, the report had: points possible, score, class average, and standard deviation. Well, the class gave its input, the people in charge of the reports listened, and now the spreadsheets we receive also have the top and lowest score.

Now, every time I go to check whether I passed the last exam or not, I get to see how some genius missed only one or two questions.

Good advice given to medical students: “Don’t compare yourself to your classmates.”

I agree. I just have to focus on doing the best that I can — even though, at times, finding out my score can be a very humbling experience.

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Oprah’s Omentum

December 13, 2007 by 6 Comments

I woke up really groggy last Monday. It was the first day of exam week. The exam of the day was Gross Anatomy & Embryology. As I ate my cereal I watched the morning news. Oprah OmentumOprah had been busy over the weekend. She was campaigning for Obama. The New York Post decided it would be clever to talk about Obama’s Oprah-generated momentum by calling it “Omentum.”

That was kind of weird. I was thinking about omentum — specifically greater and lesser omentum. The day’s exam would cover face & scalp, infratemporal fossa, and the gut.

I think I hate the gut. Its just nasty looking. And greasy too. I find the greater omentum disgusting. The greater omentum is this flat tissue-like thing that hangs in front of your stomach. It can move around too. If there is a perforated gut, the omentum might migrate to the site and wrap around it. I also heard that sometimes, as a surgeon is working in the area, the omentum may slowly make its way to the foreign object — the surgeon’s hands.

That’s just gross.

Incidentally, when I was looking for a picture of the NY Post cover up above, I found another picture of Oprah. She was actually holding someone’s omentum in her hand.
Oprah

Sources: MSNBC.com, Oprah.com, and NYPost.com.

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What a frenzy

December 11, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I walked out of anatomy lab a few minutes ago. Tomorrow is the lab practical exam. Earlier in the week we got an email that said the lab would be open today from 8-10 AM and 3-5 PM. I though the 8-10 AM time slot was kind of odd. All of the first years had a Cell Structure & Function exam at 8:30. Eighty-seven questions and two hours allotted. Even though you could leave whenever you finished, I don’t think many people actually got to squeeze some lab time in before 10.

So I go into lab at 4 PM and figure a good hour reviewing my cadaver and radiographs would be helpful. That place was packed! Shouldn’t be surprised. The day before practicals, the lab is always packed. But it seemed like there was a panicked frenzy… People were going here and there quickly. Stress levels were pretty high — higher than usual.

Monday was the anatomy written exam. I think the class average was about 71%. Of the 3 anatomy exams we’ve taken, this was the lowest average. That might explain the commotion.

In forty minutes, one of the biochem professors will hold a review. That exam will be on Thursday (along with a Pulmonary Physiology Exam).

Alright, off I go to do some more studying…

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Reforming the U.S. Healthcare System

November 30, 2007 by 15 Comments

Related Posts: Physician Salaries on the Decline

This quarter I’m taking a course called “Medicine and Ethics.” The class is taught by Dr. X. (name withheld). There are a number of topics that was scheduled to be discussed and each topic was presented by a group of 3 or 4 students. I ended up in a group of four. Our topic, as you can probably guess by the title of this post was “Reforming the American Medical System.”

I wanted no part of this topic. I felt that the American Healthcare System is a mess but there’s not much we can do about it. I really wanted to be in the group that would present on physicians and war. But as Dr. X went down the list and waited for volunteers for each topic, it became clear that Reforming the U.S. Healthcare was not the popular one. No hands jumped up at the opportunity to tackle this problem… So I reluctantly raised my hand and said I’d join the group.

I had already heard that the United States spends more money than any other industrialized nation on healthcare. I had heard people complain that the Healthcare system in America is broken. But these were only things I heard. I, personally, had never had any problems accessing healthcare. And so when I actually looked at the stats, well, it was a bit surprising.

Some of the things I discovered in my casual research:

  • The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a form of Universal Healthcare.
  • The United States spends at least 40% more per capita than any other industrialized nation on healthcare.
  • The United States spends more than 3 times more per capita than Canada on Health Administration costs alone.
  • Almost 47 million Americans (approx. 16%) are without healthcare insurance or are not eligible for buying affordable life insurance.
  • Eight out of 10 uninsured Americans come from working families.

Those are some incredible numbers. And while only about 16% of Americans are uninsured, the majority of Americans with insurance are only one major medical emergency away from bankruptcy. Many are well-aware of how much is available to them under their health insurance policy. And, while it may be enough for your routine physical check-up or the occasional prescription medication, it is nowhere near enough to cover $40,000 that might be billed for cancer treatment.

Why is it that every other industrialized nation can provide healthcare to their citizens at a far lower cost than what Americans spend? Its a shame that the country that won the race to the moon cannot figure out how to ensure that every citizen has access to basic healthcare.

In my mind, there are two major roadblocks preventing the United States from transitioning to a Universal Healthcare system.

  1. Doctors
  2. Big Business

Physicians are afraid of the idea of Universal Healthcare and a single payer system. Why? Because they fear losing control. I believe that many physicians are afraid that a single payer system would negatively affect physician salaries. While it may be possible for the government to force down physician salaries in a single payer system, it is not in the best interest of the government or the nation to do so. If there was not financial benefit to being a physician, most countries would have a huge shortage of physicians. But, under the universal systems in other industrialized nations, physicians do make a decent, comfortable living.

The bloated health care system of the United States benefits big business more than any other party involved. It benefits big business more than physicians. But most concerning, it benefits big business more than the patient. As health insurance premiums continue to rise, insurance companies continue to pull in a profit while more and more Americans find out that can no longer afford coverage.

Greed drives the industry. The sole purpose of a corporation is not to look out for the interests of its customers and ensure customer satisfaction. The goal of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders.

And that is the problem with privatized healthcare. If a corporation begins to lose money, its shareholders get antsy. But when healthcare is federally funded, the government can take a loss for the good of its citizens.

Reforming the healthcare system will probably mean that the big corporations in the healthcare system won’t be making as much money. But America needs to decide, as a whole and through our leaders in congress, that the health of a nation is more important than the pocketbooks of corporations. Hopefully, we decide soon.


Sources:

 

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