I want to be the Rembert Brown of medicine

Ban Ki-moon - runs the UN, loves Gangnam style

I decided on New Year's eve that 2013 was going to be the year of sidenote. Since then, my ingenious friend Amulya Iyer (went to Williams) has been helping me recraft sidenote, and here's the latest fix. 

sidenote- here's my theory: there's an enormous amount of reading material on the internet, but most of it is cookie cutter bullshit. Anyone can write a blog post about how to manage your time during med school, or recap the highlights of the latest NBA game. Not everyone can write something that connects to the heart and soul of humans. 

That's why I love Grantland. Take Grantland founder Bill Simmons - he first launched his internet writing career while bartending. He focused on writing stuff he thought his friends would like because he never liked sports writers that wrote without a bias in the name of journalistic objectivity. He recently came out with a column which was an email exchange between he and his friend ripping on the Lakers. 

Take Grantland star Rembert Brown - he started out at a small liberal arts college, kept pumping out writing that people vibed with, and now he writes columns analyzing videos from the 80's like a Bowie/Jagger dance off or breaking down the top Chapelle's Show sketch via a 64 sketch bracket. Inspiring the world through art. 

Our modern era is a world where an Oberlin alum is the most relevant TV star. sidenote - if you're counting, that's the third shoutout to small liberal arts colleges in this one post. Needless to say, go Kenyon. We live in an era when a slightly overweight Asian man can create the most popular youtube video of all-time. This is the era of normal people, giving other normal people what they want. 

the world'll feel my truths

Medicine needs the same, so we're entering a new era in sidenote. Pauline Chen, Abraham Verghese, Atul Gawande, et al. Watch your back. 

Amulya's most recent suggestion was to have a schedule of recurring posts, so here it is, giving the people what they want:

Monday: Relationships in Med School - analyzing marriage and the overall role of relationships during med school.

Tuesday: Half-baked idea about medical education - instead of just complaining about med school, which I don't plan on stopping, I'll throw out half-baked ideas on how we can change medical education. I can't promise they'd improve it, but they'll be fully half-baked and as off-the-wall as possible.

Wednesday: NBA. I know most of my readers don't care about the NBA, but I love basketball. One of my dreams is still to quit med school and intern for Grantland. I'm really good at making coffee.

Thursday: Grab bag - Whatever I feel like, because this is my blog.

Friday: Something interesting from the internet. It's a crazy world out there.

Plus "About That Life", a series of stories recapping the life of a med student, will be thrown in whenever a med school event happens. 

I'm also going to shoot for posting at 9 AM everyday, so if you're sitting in class at 9 AM, tell your friends about me.

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. giving the people what they want. please comment or email.