my life, my pace

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. I also only studied for a week before the MCAT and yet my numbers were awesome and I had no problem at all getting into medical school. I have my semi-photographic memory to thank for allowing me to be such a slacker. Even in med school, I slacked more than most and still made it through the first two years just fine. Yes, I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, but not as hard as most of my classmates. Let’s not even mention grad school because it’s a complete joke compared to med school and I’m sure you get the point. I have no problem with slackers as long as they eventually get “serious” enough to know when to work when it matters. What I do take issue with are those who purposely skirt the rules and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter simply because they know someone…those who slack and have crappy numbers who just want a free ride while other slackers actually earned their way…those who have no sense of how much trust will be placed in them when they become doctors and do not take it seriously. I was taught by my favorite high school math teacher that the cream always floats to the top and maybe I was naive to believe it, but it is because of this belief that I can’t stand ass-kissers who actually get ahead not because they’re awesome in every way and deserve it, but merely because they kissed the right ass. I believe in people being rewarded for how awesome they are and not because of sneaky underhanded tactics.

So there it is. I hope we’re all on the same page now.

Related posts:

1. contrary to popular beliefBecoming 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....
2. in response to my dear reader post…Ages ago, I noticed an onslaught of new user registrations without much in the way of comment-posting, so I wrote a post requesting that readers give me some input about what they want to see on this blog. I am now finally getting around to responding to loyal (I hope so still...) reader 314's questions listed below. 1. Did you ever have any dream careers as a child? When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a scientist. I even went so far as to draw a picture of myself in a labcoat working with chemicals at a lab bench when I was in second grade or so. So I've always been interested in the sciences. In high school, I wanted to be an astronomer until my mom told me that I'd never find a job (she was probably right). Not very interesting, huh? 2. What did you think being a doctor meant when you first decided to go to med school? I lived a pretty sheltered life until my mom passed away when I was in high school. Even afterwards, I remained pretty sheltered (thanks to a psycho possessive ex-boyfriend). I had never really been exposed to what it is that doctors actually do except for what I saw whenever I went to my own doctor, who was invariably either a family practician or a pediatrician. So I thought that being a doctor meant having my own general practice and that was what I wanted to do....
3. can you be a slacker and a premed?I would like to think not.  Or that if you were, that you would very soon not be a premed anymore because your grades would suck.  No, wait, I was a slacker.  I never studied except for right before exams and I never wrote my papers until the night before and I graduated college summa cum laude.  But I had enough brains to always pull it off.  So I guess I should correct my statement to: you can't be a dumb slacker and be a premed.  Yes, that sounds about right....

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