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 :)
   

april is the cruellest month...

I'm sure almost every April in my eight years of blogging I've made a post entitled "April is the cruellest month," because, well, April sucks hard. (Sorry T.S. Eliot, I have not your way with words.)

Yes, April is the perfect, opportune, most SADISTIC time for professors to lay one last awful hell week on you before the hell week of all hell weeks: May finals. It's like clockwork.

I was looking at a text doc of things I had wanted to blog about nearly 2 months ago, and unfortunately half of them don't make sense to me anymore:

1. med school formal
   
2. valentine's day
3. hell week for studying (...which one???)
4. got the job i wanted** (I put two stars next to this one because it probably merits more than a few skimpy sentences.)
5. a word on healer's art
6. spring break -- home and california**
   
7. flight delay
8. the white tiger
9. sam adams brewery
10. starting at project trust 4 hrs/week**

Let's just say for numbers 1 and 2 that they happened, they were lovely, and they involved brilliant views of the Boston skyline (no. 1) and heart-shaped pancakes (no. 2).

Nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9 are too long to hash out entirely, but they did involve Disneyland, an unplanned overnight stay in DC that I spent sleeping at the airport (thank you, United!), some beer with AMSA pals, and "fuzzy hearts" from old Jewish folks, though not entirely in that order of events.

But in all seriousness, Spring Break was an incredible mash-up of seeing my family, bringing Andrei to KC again, celebrating my 21st birthday (no I don't feel any wiser nor do I drink any more alcohol than I did before I was 21, sadly?), and lying poolside in sunny California in-between medical talks. (Sign me up for the next conference!) And no, I have not yet posted pictures. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

Sidenote: At the national AMSA conference I did get a chance to meet and chat with Dr. Tao Le and Dr. Goljan, of First Aid and Rapid Review Pathology fame, respectively. Like, seriously, students were GEEKING OUT and asking for autographs and photos with these two docs. It was surreal, and slightly--no, tremendously--pathetic. In just one year, will I also be worshipping USMLE Step 1 review book editors? (!!!!) I shudder to think of it.

Other thoughts: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Just read it and you'll be glad you did. You'll like this if you liked Slumdog Millionaire or any type of tongue-in-cheek social commentary. One spoiler: the first person narrator tells his story entirely in letters addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. Good, no? It is hilarious and heart-breaking at the same time, and well worth anyone's time. (Also the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize, if you like that kind of thing.)

More details on the starred ** items for next time, hopefully soon.

(I have been THIS close to opening a Twitter account because usually my thoughts need to be put down immediately or they get sucked into the black hole of forgetfulness... but I'm still super Twitter-wary and for good reason, so I'm still not convinced.)

what i do when i'm not studying

After a few failed starts to Ye Olde Medical School Blog, hopefully I've managed to settle down on this one. It turns out that I'm no good at starting a story from the beginning at all. I tried to write about my white coat ceremony, I really did. I tried to start from Day One and recount the sweaty-palmed anxiety of marching at the ceremony, feeling like I was about to ooze out of existence because of the unbearable heat of midday August in Boston. But to be honest, it really wasn't very interesting stuff to remember.

And even more amazingly, all of my previous attempts to entertain myself with the story of that one time in lab when my anatomy partner threw a human heart at me with a mean spiral because "it sorta looked like a nerf ball" -- well even that was a bust. So I'm going to start this story 23 weeks and 6 days into the semester, and try my best to forget that image of a projectile human heart.

***

Thursday morning was our dreaded Neuroscience final, and we all emerged bleary-eyed from the auditorium four hours later with grand hopes of two things we had forgone all week: eating and sleeping. I went out for lunch with two classmates to a place that I've already forgotten the name of (in my food- and sleep-deprived stupor, remember?) For the majority of lunch we talked about what we'd do with our "Free Time" now that Neuro was over and now that we had a three-day weekend ahead of us. Talking about our plans for the weekend buoyed us up even more than our good meal, and we walked out of the restaurant high on our freedom from ever having to remember the ventral amygdalofugal pathway again.

The rest of the day Thursday I spent in long overdue meetings for clubs that hadn't corralled its members since before winter break, and I finally got home around 5pm and threw myself in bed. But within 15 minutes of getting into bed I pulled myself out from under the covers and mewled piteously to Andrei in the next room: "I have all this free time to do whatever I want--whatever the hell I want--and I'm choosing to stay in bed?"

So we went out to the Coolidge Corner Theatre to see Up in the Air, which was a movie that I had meant to see after our FIRST neuro exam in December, but never got around to doing. On second thought, I think the reason I didn't see it after the last neuro exam was because I DID succumb to staying in bed for the rest of that night. Carpe diem doesn't always apply to med students, obviously. Yup, sometimes seize the sleep is my only motto.

The movie was good. The cast was magnificent, especially the female actors Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick (whose role in the movie was apparently conceived just for her, and you could tell). Andrei liked it, but I thought it was totally hyped up (much like I thought Garden State was hyped up in high school). It was a funny movie and maybe "representative of our times," but I couldn't help but think that it was trying too hard in some places. It was a little unapologetically emo, and George Clooney acting emo, doe-eyed, and lost was not really that interesting to watch.

Friday I spent all morning doing chores (i.e. watering our plants and tackling all the laundry I had not-so-judiciously avoided in the two weeks before the exam) and waterproofing the tan riding boots my mom bought for me over winter break. Before I knew it (or, alternatively, three CSI re-runs later) Andrei was home and we left for the Prudential Center to do some window shopping. Ironically, the only window display that caught my eye was a display of boardgames in the window of Barnes and Noble, and I made a fabulous purchase. It's something I've always wanted! More so than a Gucci bag (Andrei likes to pronounce it "Guck-y") or a Free People dress (Andrei always jokes about the name "Free People").

As expected, we ended the night at Trident, my favorite bookshop in Boston. I love their cafe, especially their teas and carrot cake! It's a ridiculously cozy place and it wasn't too crowded (guess not too many college students spend their Friday nights in bookstores). We caught the tail-end of Trivia Night at Trident and had some fun playing Scrabble. A perfect night in my book.

Saturday I felt equally as ambitious to get out of the house, and so we spent most of the day in the Coolidge Corner area. We had lunch at Dok Bua, my favorite Thai place in a one-mile radius. On the way home I did some shopping at the Gap. I made off with some yellow and teal opaque tights, a striped turtleneck sweater, and a charming grandpa sweater. It was a good haul, worthy of a critical Asian mother's eye :o)

Saturday night Andrei made chicken curry from scratch (there's no argument that he's the better cook between us), and the rest of the afternoon was awesome because Titanic was on, followed by the SAG Awards. Later Lijo and Anna G. came over to hang out and watch movies and do the whole catching up thing.

Today we're doing more catch-up: pho with med school friends in Harvard Square, and a visit from Anna S. later tonight. I really miss that girl! In the meantime I've got to put the finishing touches on this new blog, clean my desk out, finish the book of short stories I started Friday, and pre-read for class tomorrow.

Okay, maybe pre-read.