I don’t know who makes up the “career finder” self assessments that high school guidance counselors use, but I think they’re rubbish; medicine didn’t come up on my list. I headed off to business school. As a kid in the 80’s I blame too much Street Legal – business suits and office politics had such allure. I was going to park my Beemer on Bay Street and eat sushi 3 times a day.

In hind sight not having shared interests with my business school classmates should have been a tip-off, but I’m far too practical (a nice synonym for stubborn) to bail on a degree ½ way through. I ended up working in finance and accounting at a large financial services company here in Halifax. I was good at it and quickly had a position with significant autonomy and intellectually challenging problems to work on….no clerk duties, right to the good stuff, wahoo…and yet, I was miserable. Here’s a tip from my career guidance manual, if you can convince yourself you’ll be more productive taking your laptop to the pub and working there for the afternoon…change careers.
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It’s quiet due to our upcoming PIM exam, but I thought I’d share this! The PEI medical society has published one of our posts in their quarterly newsletter! Thanks Jocelyn for getting it in their hands, and thanks to Amit for writing it!

I’ve attached the front page of their newsletter for all to see!

OK, so this post is coming up a bit late, but you all know me by now, so I have no need to explain that I’ve been meaning to do it for ages, but somehow time always escapes me in my eternal busyness.

Interview time. We all remember it so well. Waiting with baited breath by the mailbox, having high days, knowing you’ll have no problem getting into med school, let alone an interview, then those days where you are absolute certain that your application went to the reject pile before it even passed the first page. Then, the letter (or email) comes. Afraid to open it, your heart starts to pound, and your breath comes faster. Maybe if you get someone else to open it, somehow that rejection you are fearing will magically transform into an invitation. You stare at it, afraid to know, knowing that you’re holding your future in your hands. Well, here goes nothing! You skim past the greeting, looking only for that all important word, the despair-inducing”sorry”, or the “congratulations” that will surely cause you to let out a yelp of joy.
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This week students at Dalhousie Medical School will vote in a referendum on whether a community based primary care clinical experience should included as part of the curriculum in the first 2 years of medical education. I believe it should be and I am posting to express some of the reasons why I support this initiative. I was motivated to make this post because I feel it is important that students have a public forum to exchange views and opinions on this issue and that students take some time to carefully consider their position prior to casting their votes. I hope that not only supporters but also those who feel there is not a need for this addition to our curriculum will contribute their views.
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One thing that bothers me about telling people that I’m a med student is that I’m automatically stereotyped. It seems that before I can even make a first impression, the person I’m talking to already has a generalized concept of who I am. And that can be really frustrating, especially in the context of our lectures.
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So we had a session the other day on interdisciplinary teamwork—where some couple hundred students in their first year of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and a few more I can’t remember, crammed into the Rebecca Cohen Auditorium for a 2 hour session on inter-disciplinary teamwork.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, or for the nursing student sitting in front of me who spent the entire session texting (in plain view) her bum-chums on how trashed she got last night, interdisciplinary teamwork is just what it sounds like–its about integrating the expertise and knowledge of various professionals in working towards a common goal. It means bringing physicians and nurses and pharmacists and the many other professionals involved in health-care delivery, together to work in a cohesive manner to support a patient back to health. Interdisciplinary teamwork (in its various incarnations as multidisciplinary teams or collaborative teams and the like) is neither a new concept nor a particularly groundbreaking one—in fact the simplicity of the concept (i.e. two brains are better than one) is rather deceiving with respect to how its actually implemented.
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If there’s anything I take pride in, it’s my three great kids. So I’d look for any excuse to write about them. Well, here’s a great excuse! I’ve noticed having children in medical school is fairly rare and having three is even less the norm. There’s no doubt that being a dad and a medical student is exciting and traumatic all at the same time. Nevertheless, it’s a joy. I’m thankful they have a wonderful mother (my beautiful wife) who makes most things happen.

So, in order to give you a little glimpse into the mysterious world of med school fatherhood, here’s a day in the life of a med school dad (at least 90% accurate)
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The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is home to the hospitals tiniest patients, many weighing less than a kilogram (2.2 pounds). This is where I spend my Wednesday afternoons, learning about the care of neonates and wondering if they even appreciate the new dress shirts my girlfriend picked out for me. After several weeks of visiting the unit I could not help but notice that there seemed to be new babies every week. Always a curious and eager learner I asked my preceptor where babies come from. Rather than answer me right away she suggested that over the Christmas break I spend a night with the neonatal resuscitation team. This she (correctly) assumed would provide me with the knowledge I sought.

I arrived at 4pm on a cold afternoon and was paired with the pediatric resident on call for the night. I changed into scrubs (so much for those dress shirts) and got my own pager. The resuscitation team is comprised of nurses and residents who are called to any birth deemed to be high risk (the threshold of high risk is quite low, so their resuscitation skills are most often not needed).
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Once upon a time there was a boy studying anatomy in the early weeks of his medical education. He came across names like Manubrium and Crista Terminalis, and thought to himself, “If I ever wrote a Sci-Fi epic I’d be ripping off anatomy names like they were poor black people and I was Elvis…”

Then a few days later he was walking home, grasping for a medically related idea for a Euphoria skit, but he felt so caged in with his limited medical knowledge. And then it dawned on him: Euphoria would be the Sci-Fi epic he was meant to write. Faster then he could believe it all fell into piece in his head - he could see it, hear it, smell it…
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