my life, my pace

Becoming a med student doesn’t suddenly make you a better person.  Nor does it make you a person with impeccable ethics.  Yet we, as med students, are trusted as such.  We have other people’s lives placed in our hands.  Not so much literally as figuratively.  Namely, we get to interview med school applicants.  And surprisingly enough, what we say about these applicants carries a good amount of weight.  We get no training at all.  No guidance.  We’re just handed files and told where to be.  How can we be trusted to be impartial when we were not so long ago super-competitive-willing-to-do-many-ethically-questionable-things premeds?  It’s obvious that we don’t so easily shed that identity once we enter med school.  Just ask any gunner.  So how can we be sure that med students are mature enough to interview and evaluate med school applicants?  Even I can’t help but be tempted to do to others as was done to me when I was interviewed.  But I don’t because I don’t want anyone to be treated unfairly as I was.  But are we all going to come to that conclusion and be fair?  I doubt it when most of us already have questionable ethics when it comes to such simple things as attending required class.  Sorry, premeds, but that’s the way it works.  All you can do is hope that you get a morally upstanding student interviewer.  Like me, of course.

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1. inspirational music for the medical student 1.12Mwahahaha.  I have been assigned to interview a prospective victim MD/PhD student next week.  Finally, I will have some say as to who will get the honor of being counted among my peers.  The power is quite intoxicating.  All of those sweeping changes I plan on making someday when I'm Dean are feeling like they're within my grasp. Out with well-rounded.  Out with socioeconomic hardship!  In with GPA and MCAT scores!  Well, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.  Nonetheless, it will be quite fun.  Especially given that I will have been skinned alive the day before at my quals, it's only fair that I be able to inflict the same kind of horror on someone else who is just as completely at my mercy as I am at my committee's mercy.  Mwahahaha.  Now I see how the cycle of abuse gets perpetuated.Power-trip aside, I really can't stand some of the applicants that I see come through.  How dare they think they are the hottest thing since sliced bread when all they are are insignificant bugs?  A little modesty would be nice, considering that we have plenty of people who want your spot who are probably better than you.  Shameful, really.  And that's my song for this week: Atreyu - Shameful.  Because some of the things premeds do to get into med school are just really shameful.  More on that after my quals....
2. medical student class attendance during the first two years of medical schoolIn this second study in our series of rather un-scientific studies on medical student habits, we examine medical student class attendance during the first two years of medical school. There has been anecdotal evidence of medical student attendance in class declining as medical schools adopted an attendance-not-required-except-at-certain-special-classes policy. To obtain actual data on this phenomenon, we conducted a longitudinal study of medical student class attendance habits during the first two years of medical school. Results were collected by the same carefully-placed-disguised-as-medical-students scientists as in the medical student hydration habits study. These scientists simply recorded the number of medical students attending class everyday in addition to their recordings of medical student beverage choice. These scientists followed the entering classes of 2005, 2006, and 2007 for two years to obtain the following results. Medical student attendance at class starts high at the beginning of every quarter but drops off as the quarter progresses, with the end of each quarter seeing the lowest student attendance. Fewer medical students attended class by the end of quarter six when compared to the end of quarter one. This drop-off in attendance may be explained by the fact that most medical students were freaking out and cramming for the USMLE Step 1 by the end of quarter six. Special notes: 1. There was not 100% attendance in orientation activities, showing that even at this early point, it seems that some medical students already think they are above attending hokey group activities. 2. Surprisingly, attendance was not 100%...
3. contrary to what you may think…I'm not an uptight know-it-all. Yes, I preach a lot about making sure you know what you're getting into when you decide you want to become a doctor. But that's because I didn't quite know myself (*gasp*) and because I see far too many people naively thinking that the junk on TV actually even comes close to portraying what it's really like to be a doctor. Yes, it's obvious that doctors treat illnesses, injury, and other health conditions. But what may not be obvious is that it's not quite that simple. Every patient is different--some may listen to you, some may think they know more than you, and some just want to look for any excuse to sue you. You may want to become a doctor to help people, but many times, your hands are tied by bureaucracy and you can't do anything about it but feel bad. Oh yeah, and the income to amount-of-work-you-have-to-put-in ratio kind of sucks when it comes to doctors (unless, of course, you go into derm or some other lifestyle specialty). Also, despite my ragging on and on about how it's not fair that people get ahead by kissing ass instead of working hard, I'm the biggest slacker you'll ever meet. I never studied in high school and made it a habit to never study in college until 1-2 days (at most 2.5) before any midterm or final and graduated summa cum laude with more honors and awards than you care to read about here....

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