Inspiration

A combination of stress and a new member of the blogging community has given me the justification to add another post.  And now an update.

I made shrimp fried rice last night.  I have further perfected the recipe by partially boiling the shrimp to reduce the drying that occurs after they cook.  So far, it seems to have worked.  I invited Zan and Shumaila over to my place to enjoy a warm (after microwaving) meal and some laughs.  They brought their electric mosquito swatter.  I think we killed 4 of them in total last night.  It's always tough to get people to come out to my neck of the woods.  Granted, it is an extra 3 minute walk from school, so I guess I can forgive them (please note the sarcasm here).  I'm glad it only takes a home-cooked meal and mango shakes to draw them in.

There is a new pizza joint at BB's Grill.  I find it to be a little unfair since Dan has been serving pizza to students for quite some time and now he has direct competition.  The worst part is that the fact that the new guy's pizza tastes better and costs the same.  I can't help it, but I end up going to the new guy and drown the guilt with each slice.

Six weeks into my 4th semester and so far so good.  I haven't been overly busy, so it has given me some time to watch episodes of Big Bang Theory along with the NBA and NHL playoffs.  It truly sucked to see my Sharks go down to the Blackhawks, but there is always next year.  My only worry is that Patrick Marleau might be leaving us.  I wouldn't blame him for going somewhere else since the critics unfairly laid into him for the Sharks playoffs fiascos.  Nabby might be leaving too, but I don't feel like he's be as big of a loss of people would like to think.  As I read elsewhere, the Sharks have a 82 game pre-season.  So now it might time to pick up a young goalie with playoff potential (Carey Price, I hope you're reading this) that is salary cap friendly.

I've been starting to think about clinicals the last couple of weeks.  People have been asking me what I think about medical school.  I can't really say it's that much different from undergrad.  We go to lecture-based classes, study in the library, and take scantron tests.  I don't think I'll fully understand what it takes to be a doctor until I get on the wards.  And this is where things get a little scary...

Imagine having to make a decision about another person's health and more importantly... their life.  There is a lot of power and a ton of responsibility in that.  Right now in Behavioral Science, we're talking about how to handle talking to patients who are dying and discussing end-of-life decisions.  Imagine that, telling someone that they are about to die and the only think we, as physicians, can do it mitigate the pain and help to ease the transition.  Could you have that conversation with someone?  More personally, will I?

I wonder how I'll be as a communicator.  Sure, I don't mind engaging socially with people, but can I have a deep, meaningful conversation with a relative stranger?  For the most part, this is to make it easier on your patient and also it's to help the physician stay strong in such a vulnerable position.  The studies cite fear of patient's reaction as one of the reasons doctors are not very good at this.  I guess I would agree; physicians will have to deal with so many emotions (pain, anger, sadness, elation) from people they have a professional relationship with.  Now I'm starting to see how difficult the humanitarian side of medicine can be.