ps. What is it with the Killam??
Schroeder is one of the more imaginative characters and probably the least tethered to reality. He exists in an alternate dimension that is filled with music and his main link to our own dimension is through his toy piano. In some ways, he shares many similarities to Linus. Both are intelligent, introspective thinkers with abnormal attachments to certain physical objects. For Schroeder, his ‘security blanket’ is his piano, though he is able to walk away from the piano for extended periods of time without undue anxiety. And while Linus reflects about the nature of truth and the human condition, Schroeder is more concerned with discovering the true meaning of art as it pertains to music.
OR How I Learned to Love/Tolerate Medicine
I spent first semester feeling guilty. What was I doing here? Anatomy wasn’t my cup of tea, Metabolism and Function scared the bejeezus out of me. Long story short: I was not having fun. And I felt guilty because isn’t everyone in medicine supposed to love every second of it? Aren’t there other people out there who’d kill to be where we are? And seriously, we all worked our little tushies off to get here. I thought about quitting. I was pretty sure I’d made a mistake; there were bigger fish to fry in the world of global politics and health policy and I just was not cut out for all this technical stuff. Medicine was a recent decision for me – and clearly the wrong one.
I don’t know if it was just having a vacation to unwind and regroup that made January seem brighter, or if I’d, unwittingly, had an epiphany in my subconscious over the Christmas break. Either way, coming back in January, school seemed less like the bane of my existence and more like something I could perhaps tolerate. Euphoria reminded me of the good life outside my books, and a spontaneous realization – I mean a deep, honest-to-goodness, in my heart not just in my head realization – that the M&F exam would not determine my future helped me make the final step from tolerating school to maybe enjoying it a tiny little bit. I mean tiny.
Preface: This post is actually my humanities elective essay. I thought I’d throw it up here in case any one is interested in the subject of empathy in medicine, or curious about what it’s like to jump into a white coat after being a patient for most of your living memory.
I have vivid childhood memories of the time I spent as a patient with Crohn’s disease in the children’s hospital here in Halifax. I was 11 when I was diagnosed, and thus I’ve spent more than half of my life living with it. Medicine became important to me as a career during my third year of university, when I realized it is the perfect confluence of everything that makes me happy in life. Even still, I have spent far more time identifying as a patient with Crohn’s than I have as an aspiring doctor. This post is a reflection on my experience of moving toward equilibrium between these roles; patient and doctor in training. I reflect on the degree to which my previous experience as a patient affects my bedside manner and clinical judgment with regard to patients whose position reflects my childhood experience.
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I don’t know about everybody else, but I felt kinda weird sitting in that communications session on Friday afternoon. You see, my undergrad was a double major in psychology and philosophy, so I spent plenty of time hearing about Sigmund Freud, unconscious emotions, and all that stuff that was taught to us on Friday. The difference though was when I learnt about the stuff in my undergrad it was mostly for historical purposes to highlight how psychology can go wrong.
I do not understand why it is being said that almost every assignment/ project we have is a ”make work” project. I have not yet felt that way about anything we have to do. I have wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember, and worked extremely hard to reach that goal. It definitely was not easy, nor stress free, but when I got that acceptance letter I was elated. Every day I feel lucky to be able to come to lecture, go to tutorials, and learn what I am passionate about. I don’t mind doing the assignments because they are interesting, and actually pretty relevant. In fact I think the DLE might be the most relevant assignment we have had all year. These advertisements are what our patients are going to see, and ask us questions about, and I think it is important to be able to learn to look at them critically and what to focus on.
The reason why Dal Medicine is pass/fail is to help us from devoting all our energy to acing exam, and engage in other aspects of medicine. I honestly did not mind having the geriatric visit the day before the MF exam. It was a great break and inspiring to hear perspectives and stories about doctors. The experience encouraged me to continue working hard and do my best on that exam, and every other challenge, so I can maybe one day become an effective physician.
So say what you want, but I don’t agree that the DLE assignment, or other projects, is a pointless ”make” work project.
That is my stand
I think this title line is a set up for disappointment. I mean seriously, what was I thinking stealing the tag line from one of the best journalistic minds (at least in my opinion) of our time. I blame it on the fever dreams. But anyway, no time to dwell on these types of thoughts, this is bat country..
Right, so I’ve been laid up in bed since Wednesday afternoon, with a brief respite to go to psych and the patient simulator on Thursday. And all of those hours on the couch gave me plenty of time to think, and also plenty of time to watch hockey…. But thinking about stuff is one of my favorite pastimes, so having all that time really worked out well. And seeing as how I was sick, I thought it might be appropriate to think about how we fit into the health care system. My personal feelings on where I fit in fluctuate between privileged member and scamming mongrel. I mean seriously, I’ve never felt more angst about going to the doctor than I have since starting at Dal. And for a number of different reasons. So I just wanted to put out a few thoughts about the Med student and the health care system to see if I just have some serious problems, or if there are others out there that feel the same.
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Aaron invited me to post something for discussion on your blog - it looks great, by the way! You’re doing some super-interesting writing here.
I happened across this column on the CBC website the other day, and I thought of you all, since we just covered resource allocation and spent some time talking about policy around organ donation. Stephen Strauss’s argument in this “Science Friction” column certainly takes us beyond what we got to in that lecture. It’s one thing to debate how donated organs should be distributed, and another to debate how they should be procured. Some of the general considerations we talked about would apply here too, but this brings up the Big Issue of commodification of human body parts.
Take a look at Strauss (click here) — what are your thoughts on reading him? What kind of argument is he offering? What is he leaving out? What are your thoughts on the issue?
On this page, you can listen to some interviews from CBC’s The Current on the topic. (Scroll down to Part 3.) On another topic, on my fledgling bioethics blog (layout quirks not yet resolved) I wrote something about how we understand these issues as related to culture - here.
I can’t remember who first posted the idea of people from our class taking part in the Bluenose marathon this May 18, but they must have been very convincing as I decided to sign up to do the full marathon. I did run the half marathon in 2005 which was my previous longest distance. Since the end of M+F I have been in training for the marathon, 42km. I have been running 5 times a week, each week increasing my total kilometers, as well as the length of my long run on Sunday. So far I am up to 34km in my training so I have a ways to go.
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So during the past reading week, as part of my Humanities-in-medicine elective in trauma systems/emergency, I had the chance to look at pre-hospital care. Basically I spent the week doing ambulance ride-alongs with paramedics. Aside from the ungodly hours that we started day shifts (5:30am), it was such a great experience. I had the chance to see the EHS system from the inside….from checking out the communications centre, to riding with the supervisors, to going out on shifts with the paramedics themselves. By the end of my shifts I think I’d made a pretty comfortable place for myself in the captains chair in the back of the ambulance and made good friends with that bottle of manorapid on the bench next to me (note: this is what happens when you’re learning about microbiology and pathology—you start seeing ‘bugs’ everywhere; another shining example of ignorance is bliss).
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