can i be just like you when i grow up?

Remember in my last post when I mentioned medical students geeking out and going fan-crazy for Dr. Tao Le and Dr. Goljan? Well I had my own little fanfest yesterday when some medical students and I went to see Dr. Atul Gawande speak.

His name is probably well known among health science circles, but probably not super recognizable to the lay public. He's a general and endocrine surgeon at Mass General (impressive enough), an author of three books (one of which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2002), a senior health policy advisor for the WHO, and also --ALSO!-- a staff writer for The New Yorker. Pretty darn impressive!

The two-hour talk was hosted in SMG (the School of Management building), and good lord I forgot how swanky SMG is! When I try to imagine the same bar service and waiters carrying trays of hors d'oeurves in the medical school lobby, my mind just draws a big, impossible blank.

The venue made a lot of sense, since the topic was using management tools (read: checklists) to transform healthcare and its practice. Half of the audience consisted of idealistic, doe-eyed medical students with huge crushes on Dr. Gawande, and the other half consisted of older, fatter, and better-dressed businessmen/SMG alumni. You could tell some of them were big donors to the School of Management Health Sector Management Program by all the schmoozing, handshaking, and Oh-Hey-There's! It was a very odd environment, needless to say.

The topic was incredibly interesting, and unbelievably I walked away feeling pretty interested in healthcare management. Me, get an MBA? Does this seem completely out of character?

This reminds me of a conversation that I had with a friend last month:

My friend (who is MD/PhD): Hey are you planning to get any other degrees besides your MD?


Me: Uh... well maybe an MPH at some point... (Thinking to myself: As if this MD isn't enough schooling to try my sanity...)


My amused friend: Hahaha, you would get an MPH, Xu!

Ugh, I don't even want to go there with MPH stereotypes. I own not one pair of Birkenstocks, do you hear me? Nor have I ever volunteered abroad to irrigate farmland or deworm children. (Also, Dr. Gawande is an MPH and NOT an MBA, so what does that tell you? Well, he probably has done some of those things.)

Long story short, I sidled up to Dr. Awesome after the talk and asked very nicely for an autograph in my copy of his book. Before the words were even out of my mouth, he kindly interrupted, "Do you want me to sign something?"

Just imagine going to work and doing a couple of life-saving surgeries and then doing a talk where every person in the audience is hanging onto your every last word... and then coming out to sign a couple autographs for your WORLD-FAMOUS books.

Unfortunately what stands between me and that kind of success is...

1. medical school
   
   and
   
   
2. becoming an actual badass and not just little ole me :)