Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sakrfishal Klam
Why in GOD'S NAME would anyone want to be a doctor?!
You spend the last two years of school working your ass off so you can compete with the top 5% of the nerdlosers in the state to get into Med school.
Once there, your days become a monochrome, monotonous lump of memorization and regurgitation.
You go to clinicals so people can tell you how to do things you'll be doing for the next 30 years.
You'll have exams that ALL seem to matter, because if not, you'll get kicked out of aforementioned nerdloser programme.
You've got this for 6 years. 6 long years of memorizing fact after fact after fact about symptoms and diagnoses.
All the while knowing that some poor sucker could live or die based on what you learn TODAY. The stakes are already so damn high, and what happens when you finish med school?
They get even higher. You actually start dealing with patients as an intern, and as a resident, you don't even have a doctor looking after you all the time making SURE you don't kill someone.
All this so that you can get good specialist training and enter into a job that, romantically, is super satisfying and pays for itself.
Right?
No. Doctors start off poor. For the first at least 7 years out of med school, you don't make much. Satisfaction? How many bad, rude, obnoxious, lying, ungrateful patients do you have to go through til that wears off? How many long hours? How many sacrificed relationships? How much lost time with your children? How many deaths that you were somehow connected to? How much mind-numbing guilt?
I think it all boils down to the fact that people who do medicine are very, very sacrificial. Either that or they have no clue what they're getting themselves into. You have your share of memorable patients, of people that you helped, of people you may even have saved....but is it really worth it?
I'm terrified. I don't know which category I fit into: the category of people who, for some reason, think doctors are all the Big Cheese because when she was little, someone put into her head the unshakeable notion that doctors were these wonderful, wonderful, awesome people, saviours of mankind, just below angels.
Or one of those kids who has to keep telling herself that she's a fantastic little sacrificial clam and that what she does matters.
Or just one of those kids who has no bloody idea.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
You spend the last two years of school working your ass off so you can compete with the top 5% of the nerdlosers in the state to get into Med school.
Once there, your days become a monochrome, monotonous lump of memorization and regurgitation.
You go to clinicals so people can tell you how to do things you'll be doing for the next 30 years.
You'll have exams that ALL seem to matter, because if not, you'll get kicked out of aforementioned nerdloser programme.
You've got this for 6 years. 6 long years of memorizing fact after fact after fact about symptoms and diagnoses.
All the while knowing that some poor sucker could live or die based on what you learn TODAY. The stakes are already so damn high, and what happens when you finish med school?
They get even higher. You actually start dealing with patients as an intern, and as a resident, you don't even have a doctor looking after you all the time making SURE you don't kill someone.
All this so that you can get good specialist training and enter into a job that, romantically, is super satisfying and pays for itself.
Right?
No. Doctors start off poor. For the first at least 7 years out of med school, you don't make much. Satisfaction? How many bad, rude, obnoxious, lying, ungrateful patients do you have to go through til that wears off? How many long hours? How many sacrificed relationships? How much lost time with your children? How many deaths that you were somehow connected to? How much mind-numbing guilt?
I think it all boils down to the fact that people who do medicine are very, very sacrificial. Either that or they have no clue what they're getting themselves into. You have your share of memorable patients, of people that you helped, of people you may even have saved....but is it really worth it?
I'm terrified. I don't know which category I fit into: the category of people who, for some reason, think doctors are all the Big Cheese because when she was little, someone put into her head the unshakeable notion that doctors were these wonderful, wonderful, awesome people, saviours of mankind, just below angels.
Or one of those kids who has to keep telling herself that she's a fantastic little sacrificial clam and that what she does matters.
Or just one of those kids who has no bloody idea.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Friday, February 08, 2008
Running In, Snatching The Spotlight, And Running Back Out.
Grace and I were talking the other day about what it's like, being a third culture kid.
We're an unusually adaptable breed, most of us having had the experience of being wrenched from a place we felt most at home and complacent and secure, and being deftly positioned in a totally new world. A world in which you might not speak the language, or looked different from everyone else, or in some cases (and sometimes even more horrifyingly) looked just like everyone else.
So that's how we've learned to adapt to things: we run in, snatch the spotlight somehow (it's why many of us are likeable and fun and personable: we're not sure if we'll HAVE time to make deep, lasting friendships), and run back out. We make friends quickly and get to know them by spilling our life stories or colourful histories, but then we get really close by revealing that we have the same problems as they do.
I did that in Canada, though I probably wasn't even aware of it: we were in. Made an impression as "the smart Indian girl". Left and was perfectly OK with it.
Brunei was harder....Brunei was a long pitstop: 8 years. 8 long years, and I'd become complacent: this WAS definitely home!!! I'd have to leave sometime, but no time soon! I'd broken the TCK Time-Reverse Rule, which stipulates that the longer you stay in a place, the LESS attached you're supposed to grow in anticipation that you'll have to up and run.
But moving along, I DID get over Brunei eventually, and made really awesome friends here.
So why's it proving so difficult NOW of all times? I made great friends, and had wonderful experiences that shaped and changed me, just like Brunei....but unlike there, I'm not even really LEAVING, nor is anyone else! I'll be in Sydney, most of my friends in Newcastle, which is just a couple of hours away.
So why?
Run in, snatch spotlight, run back out. I can't seem to let go and just run back out. And I'm really, really going to miss them all, and miss school, and miss my teachers and everyone.
Sigh. I think I'll go watch Scrubs, where all the world makes sense.
We're an unusually adaptable breed, most of us having had the experience of being wrenched from a place we felt most at home and complacent and secure, and being deftly positioned in a totally new world. A world in which you might not speak the language, or looked different from everyone else, or in some cases (and sometimes even more horrifyingly) looked just like everyone else.
So that's how we've learned to adapt to things: we run in, snatch the spotlight somehow (it's why many of us are likeable and fun and personable: we're not sure if we'll HAVE time to make deep, lasting friendships), and run back out. We make friends quickly and get to know them by spilling our life stories or colourful histories, but then we get really close by revealing that we have the same problems as they do.
I did that in Canada, though I probably wasn't even aware of it: we were in. Made an impression as "the smart Indian girl". Left and was perfectly OK with it.
Brunei was harder....Brunei was a long pitstop: 8 years. 8 long years, and I'd become complacent: this WAS definitely home!!! I'd have to leave sometime, but no time soon! I'd broken the TCK Time-Reverse Rule, which stipulates that the longer you stay in a place, the LESS attached you're supposed to grow in anticipation that you'll have to up and run.
But moving along, I DID get over Brunei eventually, and made really awesome friends here.
So why's it proving so difficult NOW of all times? I made great friends, and had wonderful experiences that shaped and changed me, just like Brunei....but unlike there, I'm not even really LEAVING, nor is anyone else! I'll be in Sydney, most of my friends in Newcastle, which is just a couple of hours away.
So why?
Run in, snatch spotlight, run back out. I can't seem to let go and just run back out. And I'm really, really going to miss them all, and miss school, and miss my teachers and everyone.
Sigh. I think I'll go watch Scrubs, where all the world makes sense.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Chandelier Earrings and Pretty Curls
I've got both.
Three boxes containing the world's most comprehensively awesome jewellery collection. Enough hideous hairstyles in the past to allow for karmic retribution to throw me naturally loose, feminine curls.
You know what's awesome, though?
Today, I didn't need them.
I've been losing weight (again, what a surprise, Sana's on a diet) for the last two months, but the surprising thing is, when I break the stupid thing and eat roasted cashews, I don't feel like throwing up or self flagellating or like my guilt will drown me anymore.
Today, I walked out with no earrings and my hair in a rather unflattering (but super comfortable) granny bun....and felt fantastic.
It's been a really long time since I didn't have to hide some part of my body or shape behind my HotFro or jewellery or strategically positioned bright kurtas.
I stepped out in Rachel's ugly yellow (YELLOW!) t-shirt and GYM PANTS and non-matching sneakers today.
Everyone who's ever known me knows I've had...how to put this politically correctly....body image issues. For a very, very long time.
And today, I looked in the mirror in all my post-gym frizzy-fro'd sweaty glory...and said, dayme...that's a beautiful girl, right there.
Yeah. I'm OK with that. That's a beautiful girl, right there.
Three boxes containing the world's most comprehensively awesome jewellery collection. Enough hideous hairstyles in the past to allow for karmic retribution to throw me naturally loose, feminine curls.
You know what's awesome, though?
Today, I didn't need them.
I've been losing weight (again, what a surprise, Sana's on a diet) for the last two months, but the surprising thing is, when I break the stupid thing and eat roasted cashews, I don't feel like throwing up or self flagellating or like my guilt will drown me anymore.
Today, I walked out with no earrings and my hair in a rather unflattering (but super comfortable) granny bun....and felt fantastic.
It's been a really long time since I didn't have to hide some part of my body or shape behind my HotFro or jewellery or strategically positioned bright kurtas.
I stepped out in Rachel's ugly yellow (YELLOW!) t-shirt and GYM PANTS and non-matching sneakers today.
Everyone who's ever known me knows I've had...how to put this politically correctly....body image issues. For a very, very long time.
And today, I looked in the mirror in all my post-gym frizzy-fro'd sweaty glory...and said, dayme...that's a beautiful girl, right there.
Yeah. I'm OK with that. That's a beautiful girl, right there.