At this point I just want to be invited to the dance...
I often wonder if I really am up for this challenge. Last night I was a bit overwhelmed with everything that is on my plate at the moment and it occurred to me that this is what medical school is going to be like. My weeks have started to bleed together in an array of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, food, and occasionally some sleep (tainted by dreams of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, the most recent of which included my organic chem professor and many of my fellow classmates at my home and my professor asking me where the bottle of scotch is?). Add to my schedule, the commencement of an MCAT prepcourse beginning this weekend, the first class of which is a practice exam. Naturally, I dreamt about this as well, with my first semester calculus teacher administering the exam and I being an hour late (at least I was not naked.) The pressure is starting to really build up and I am getting very irritable, to wit I took last night off from my studies and played some Simpsons Road Rage while my wife and a fellow MSW student discussed the finer points of their field placements.
Earlier this week I took an opportunity, during our weekly orgo chem workshops, to place an answer to one of the problems up on the board for presentation to the class and found that as I picked up the chalk to write it all down, I was shaking. I was so damn nervous, even after confirming that I had done the problem correctly with one of the TA's, prior to my putting it on the board. I've performed in front many more people than were in this small lecture room, but never had the feeling that more than 50% of them wanted me to fail in some way. The competition is outrageous and I know that med school is not going to be any different. Many of the horror stories that I have heard, include all night watches of cadavers so that rival groups would not be able to tamper with them. I understand feeling competitive in terms of being asked to the dance, but once you're there shouldn't you just dance and not worry about anything or anyone else for the time being, but that is not the nature of the beast, because the competition just gets worse and worse. I have no illusions about what I am getting into and I certainly don't think of this as some over-written, slick produced television show that eventually caters to the viewing public's desires by taking away everything that makes the show interesting and turning it into a show about relationships. (funny story: so at the hospital where I am a volunteer, an ambulance came in with a woman who had been shot, two trauma doctors ran out to meet the ambulance, while a room was being prepared and people were buzzing about in anticipation of something a bit more exciting than the usual patients (i.e. I fell, I have a headache, my stomach hurts, etc) and as this was all happening a desk clerk commented...."Wow, this is just like that show ER".) Every time I think that I don't want to do this, I go and spend four hours in a hospital emergency room and I know that this is what I want to do....I want the white coat and blank sleepless stare that comes with it, the surly nurses, the vomiting, the excrement, the faint smell of urine from some of the stretchers. I want to be one of those med student/resident/attendees that passes a volunteer and doesn't give them the time of day, and can't even look them in the face because they are beneath me. (that's the part that I don't understand, didn't they all have to go through the volunteer thing that I am going through to get where they are, do they even understand that I am there not only to help myself, but help others too (umm...isn't that why people want to be doctors....to help others, to heal others, etc.) and make thier jobs (and the nurses jobs) just a little bit easier by giving the patients something to focus on so that they don't get pissed off by the fact that they have been sitting there in a bed for 12 hours and haven't been seen by anyone. But, I and other volunteers don't mean anything. It just seems a little odd and I know that all of them are under an immense amount of pressure, especially the med students and such...and who can forget about all the competition amoungst all the other med students, residents etc, but is it that hard to make eye contact with a lowly volunteer, I mean what is this, a caste system in India....(yes...yes it is)...."Well..enough of my yackin'....let's boogie!"
Earlier this week I took an opportunity, during our weekly orgo chem workshops, to place an answer to one of the problems up on the board for presentation to the class and found that as I picked up the chalk to write it all down, I was shaking. I was so damn nervous, even after confirming that I had done the problem correctly with one of the TA's, prior to my putting it on the board. I've performed in front many more people than were in this small lecture room, but never had the feeling that more than 50% of them wanted me to fail in some way. The competition is outrageous and I know that med school is not going to be any different. Many of the horror stories that I have heard, include all night watches of cadavers so that rival groups would not be able to tamper with them. I understand feeling competitive in terms of being asked to the dance, but once you're there shouldn't you just dance and not worry about anything or anyone else for the time being, but that is not the nature of the beast, because the competition just gets worse and worse. I have no illusions about what I am getting into and I certainly don't think of this as some over-written, slick produced television show that eventually caters to the viewing public's desires by taking away everything that makes the show interesting and turning it into a show about relationships. (funny story: so at the hospital where I am a volunteer, an ambulance came in with a woman who had been shot, two trauma doctors ran out to meet the ambulance, while a room was being prepared and people were buzzing about in anticipation of something a bit more exciting than the usual patients (i.e. I fell, I have a headache, my stomach hurts, etc) and as this was all happening a desk clerk commented...."Wow, this is just like that show ER".) Every time I think that I don't want to do this, I go and spend four hours in a hospital emergency room and I know that this is what I want to do....I want the white coat and blank sleepless stare that comes with it, the surly nurses, the vomiting, the excrement, the faint smell of urine from some of the stretchers. I want to be one of those med student/resident/attendees that passes a volunteer and doesn't give them the time of day, and can't even look them in the face because they are beneath me. (that's the part that I don't understand, didn't they all have to go through the volunteer thing that I am going through to get where they are, do they even understand that I am there not only to help myself, but help others too (umm...isn't that why people want to be doctors....to help others, to heal others, etc.) and make thier jobs (and the nurses jobs) just a little bit easier by giving the patients something to focus on so that they don't get pissed off by the fact that they have been sitting there in a bed for 12 hours and haven't been seen by anyone. But, I and other volunteers don't mean anything. It just seems a little odd and I know that all of them are under an immense amount of pressure, especially the med students and such...and who can forget about all the competition amoungst all the other med students, residents etc, but is it that hard to make eye contact with a lowly volunteer, I mean what is this, a caste system in India....(yes...yes it is)...."Well..enough of my yackin'....let's boogie!"
posted by MVH at
2:55 PM
1 Comments:
you wanna dance?
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