half-baked idea - New M1/M2 class: Patient Care Technician

Brian Still, Jordan Shealy, Kaleb Keyserling
Thanks to Brian Still, Jordan Shealy, and Kaleb Keyserling for helping me with this post. Brian worked as a Patient Care Tech, Jordan was an Anesthesia Tech, and Kaleb was a nursing assistant.

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Here's one of my frustrations about med school.  We came here because we wanted to help people. Specifically, sick people. So we spent four years of undergraduate lives putting up with insane BS to get here. Now that we've arrived, we put up with more BS. We have to spend our time on pretend patient write ups, study endless details about mechanisms of drugs that aren't even used in clinics. What if we had a chance to actually do something useful.. AND learn something? 

We have a class called Fundamentals of Patient Care - where we learn things like measuring blood pressure, follow around nurses to learn about what non-doctors do as a part of the medical team, generally learn about non-classroom things. Except the problem is - we do it in a classroom. Are you sitting? Good, because I'm about to drop a ground breaking idea on you - what if we learned non-classroom things, not in a classroom?

Hear me out. Let's bring pre-M1's to campus 8 weeks earlier and put them through a combined orientation/PCT training. It'd be a great time to bond with classmates without the awkwardness of orientation, and it'd be exposure to the clinic. Then, after those 8 weeks the M1's would be certified to be patient care tech's at hospitals.

On top of that M2's would arrive early to do the M1 training. This would double as M2-to-M1 mentoring, but also provide clinically relevant summer jobs for M2's to pad their resume's. Everyone wins.  

sidenote - at USC Greenville they have a similar program where M1's arrive early to become EMT's. This idea ALREADY exists. If MUSC is truly the flagship South Carolina med school, it has to get on board with the shift of med school education to clinical training.

Here's the part that might be unpopular.. we'd put M1's and M2's on a monthly shift at the hospital 7 PM to 7 AM shift.  Would it be a lot of work?  Yes, but we could replace many things. Hospital visits would be out, so that's 4 hrs per 6 wks. Small group would be gone - 3 hrs per week. We could also get rid of classes where we learn how to talk to patients, learn to deal with minority groups, understand healthcare disparities, etc. Plus the senior mentor program because we'd be seeing elderly patients every shift. That's probably 4 hrs per 6 wks, which adds up to 17 hrs per month. You would actually be saving time, plus making yourself useful during your pre-clinical years. 

sidenote - Isn't there also some valuable to starting from the bottom of the totem pole?  Shouldn't future leaders of healthcare teams have to understand the jobs of the techs? Shaving a patients private areas, measuring blood glucose, putting cushions under comatose patients to prevent sores. 

This would also give med students a greater appreciation for vital signs, which are interestingly enough, called vital signs because they are vital.  If we could make diagnoses and understand physiology better from a vital sign perspective, it would pay dividends for saving money on excessive diagnostic tests. 

This would also improve interprofessional communication because med students that went through this program would have better relationships with nurses.

EVERYONE WINS.

And to pile it on, what about the Malcolm Gladwell Outliers 10,000 hr theory - we need 10,000 hours of doing anything before we can truly become great at it?  Shouldn't we be devoting as much time as possible to hit that 10,000 hrs of patient care time as soon as we can? The answer is yes, as future doctors we should be investing our energy in becoming good future doctors.

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Wingspan Wednesdays: Rondo out for season

Emergency virtual coffee date with Amulya Iyer to analyze the Rajon Rondo injury:

Ken: After I jinxed Rondo with this RIP 2012-13 Celtics post, I felt like we had to analyze the situation.


Amulya: 



Ken: Wow.. Although, I love that the lightest shades of red are in New England. 


What direction do the Celtics go in? I saw Jalen Rose tweet a half-baked trade: KG for Tiago Splitter/Steven Jackson. Wow. KG + TD. Arguably the two best power forwards of all-time, on the same team. 

Amulya: Honestly - I think the C's pull a 96-97 Spurs. Just tank the season, make a play for the #1 overall pick, and start giving the young guys a chance to play. In 2 years the team will have Rondo at full strength, and hopefully a young, exciting core to surround him with. Right now without Rondo they are basically the Atlanta Hawks - a mediocre team with nobody really exciting to watch. I'd much rather they be the Cavs or the Wizards next year - a team that loses a lot but is really fun to root for and exciting to watch.


K: As far as tanking goes, KG has a no trade clause and trading Pierce would be really hard to swallow. The rumor is no big moves, but isn't that what they said before Perk/Green? That's where this whole Celtics team started going bad. They should have fully committed to go for it and keep the Perk/KG/Pierce/Allen/Rondo core intact for one last run, or start rebuilding for the future right away and not resign KG/Allen et al. Also, Jeff Green 4 yrs at 36 million.. what?

A: Yeah - they were definitely trying to hedge their bets by trying to get younger but also stay competitive. I guess it didn't work.

Although they would have been screwed with this Rondo injury regardless of what the rest of their team looked like. ACL is tough. We'll see how Rose comes back from it, but except for Adrian Peterson everyone who comes back from ACL injury loses explosiveness, which means Rondo's entire career will look different. I wonder if he will even come back at 80% - quickness, agility is a huge part of his game.

K: He's a pretty cerebral guy, he could use this time to transform his game. Any chance he could just shoot free throws non-stop for the next 8-12 month? 

The downside is, I feel like he should be trying to play like D Rose, but this takes him in the opposite direction.. The upside to this injury is, we'll get to see what Courtney Lee/JET have to offer. The JET signing might have been the most overrated move of this offseason.

A: It was probably only overrated in Boston. I'm sure every other team knew this would be bad because he could only get 3 mil a year or something. Right?

K: We should've known it was a bad omen when he did this:



A: Is that seriously tattooed on the JET?? Wow. How is that not more well known? That's the worst omen I have ever seen. I'm surprised KG and Pierce haven't torn their ACL's yet. Wow.


K: Yeah, I like bold predictions... but that was crazy. 


A: How long do you think he waited to come up with that? Like even before he signed his contract he was like - I'm definitely getting this tattoo? Is that the second championship trophy he has tattooed?


K: Just spent the last ten minutes research JET's tattoo. He got the trophy tattooed before the 2010-11 season when they won it all, when he signed with Boston he added the celtics leprechaun. sidenote - here's Paul Pierce's tattoo:


A: HAHAHAHAHAH there should definitely be a follow up to your tattoo running diary of NBA players tattoos. There must be something interesting there.


That is a bit much Paul Pierce...


K: Just read this stat, this blew my mind. 



Celts are -1.5 with Rondo on the court and +0.8 without him. I'm sure there's an explanation for this: minutes, not playing against starters, whatever. But it has to count for something, right? KG is +4. For what it's worth: KD is +15, LeBron is +14, John Wall is +14, and Darko was -31.

This gives me hope.

There has to be something wrong with a point guard that shoots a career 24% from 3 and 62% from the line. 

Here's my game plan post Rondo:

Try to see if Barbosa/Terry can take over the role as primary ball handler. I just can't give up on JET, he has to be salvageable. He was the #3 6th man of the year last season and has scored 15+ points for 7 straight seasons. Plus I just have such great memories of him from the 2011 run.

My opinion of Jason Terry has changed in so many different directions.. we should stop.


Let's end with this:


See you on the other side,


from amulya & ken


taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

pour one out

I've been sitting, staring, googling for hours to try and find the words for this post, but I don't know what to say. The following words are the best I can do. A prayer for our lost friends.
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” 
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the thick of a busy semester it gets hard to keep perspective, but at this point we're over halfway through our first year or medical school. If you passed that first semester, the odds have to be in your favor. We are well on our way to full length white coats. So, congrats! But before that, I have one request:



Yesterday one of our M4 classmates died in a car wreck on her way back from the clinic. I don't know what you do when someone dies. Do you cry? Do you joke? Do you ignore it?

Mourning one of our classmates who was no different than the rest of us. 

That could have been any one of us. 

this is 2016
While we're taking a moment, I also want to focus some positive vibes to our M1 classmates that are no longer with us. We've had a handful of students that didn't make it to the spring semester, voluntary or not. Perhaps they'll try again - here or elsewhere - but for now their medical careers are in limbo. All of us had to fight to earn our spot in med school. I don't even want to imagine what it'd be like to get this far and get placed on hold. 

We are lucky to be med students. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Relationships in med school pt 6: pursuit of greatness, romanticized?

You probably saw this viral pep talk by a five year old:



If you haven't seen it, it's an inspiring video, but it raises some questions. Has the pursuit of greatness become too romanticized? If you're single, and committed to the dream, you can go all-in for a pursuit of greatness. But if you're married, how far do you go? How fun do you think it is to be married to Kobe Bryant? 

There's something to be said for being boring. Adults become boring because boring is stable. If you're boring: you might be bringing in a stable income and you might be mentally sane enough to manage a committed relationship. Both good things.

We had a Careers in Medicine lecture today about general surgery. It sounds super exciting, and there are many days when I find myself thinking surgery. Cutting people open, saving lives, getting paid the big bucks, living the dream. But according to the American College of Surgeons: "You will be working approximately 80 hours per week and you will be spending a large portion of your time at home sleeping. The time schedule might make you and your family chronically unhappy."

If there's anything I don't like, it's my wife being unhappy. Not because I'm a martyr or anything like that, I'm just conflict averse. Is it really worth it to pursue greatness? What happens when you burn all your bridges in the pursuit of greatness? From the outside it's kind of romantic to watch someone as passionate and single-minded as Kobe.. but would you want to be him?

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

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 KenyonWe 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.

RIP 2012-13 Celtics

Two nights ago the Celtics lost the honey nut cheerios game and forfeited the rest of the season. The proof? Look no further than one night ago:



Celtics @ Atlanta. C's blow a 27 pt lead, and lose by 12 in double OT. Kyle Korver makes 8 3's in the second half. The Celtics lost by 12 in DOUBLE OT! 

Here's what we need to do now: blockbuster trade - Rondo for Bynum



Terry gets to go back to the Mavs, so they're happy, and Cuban can build around Rondo/Dirk for the next 2 years. 76ers get some draft picks, Bynum isn't seeing the court in Philly anyways. 

Celts resign Bynum at the max, then sit him on the bench for the rest of year while he goes through LIFE101 with KG. They force Pierce to fake an injury for the rest of the year, cut Jeff Green, call up Fab, win the draft lottery, pick a wing player who will have one job for the next 5 yrs: slow down LeBron/Melo/Durant.

Here's your 2013-4 starting 5: Barbosa, Bradley, Pierce, KG, Bynum 
sidenote - Am I the only one that loves Barbosa as a ball handler? Especially when he doesn't have to run the entire second unit offense? 

6th man: Lee (defense/second ball handler)

3rd big man: Sullinger 

Rest of bench: 2013 1st round draft pick (wing player to replace Truth), Fab Melo, Bass 

sidenote - just came up with another trade:



..who says no? Bringing back Nash/Amar'e/D'Antoni. Rondo finally has teammates that can make wideopen 3's. Celtics get the center they desperately need, and couple him with KG to have a legitimate twin towers offense to crush Miami.

City of Boston, you're welcome.

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

Relationships in med school pt 5: Why the traditional date is awesome

The following blog post was inspired by this baller NYT article - "The End of Courtship?" and this quote:
"Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music, and never forget that you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors." 
      - Hunter S. Thompson
Here's a 3 point list of how modern technology has ruined dating. 

1) The rise of internet dating sites have made it easier than ever to meet people.

2) The phenomenon of facebook stalking has eliminated any remaining mystery of the first date, and the process of slowly accumulating clues underlying a person's character. 

3) Texting/facebook messaging as a way to flirt. Did I spend years mastering the cross-the-room wink for nothing? 


proposal by text 
go big or go home
As a disclaimer, I have to say that I love technology. It is literally the best thing to ever happen to introverts - which I'm currently writing a post about. I've used technology extensively in my own relationship, in fact I proposed to my wife via text. That's right, via text. If you don't believe me, I have the picture to prove it.

Still... isn't there something special to the traditional date? Traditional dates have that added dash of risk that make them actually worth our time.  Aren't playoff games more fun to watch than regular season games? sidenote - I love the phenomenon when something becomes so overrated that it becomes underrated. That's what happened to the traditional date. It became too expensive to take every cute girl out to a French dinner, but now we've swung too far in the opposite direction and don't invest any money/emotional energy into dating. If I was single, I would be capitalizing on the lack of traditional dating and trying to ask every other cute girl on a traditional date. What girl is saying no to a free dinner or flowers?

Let me tell you something about young people problems - this whole dating topic is a reflection of the modern era - not willing to go all in. Our society has been coddled into a world where every other kid gets a trophy. We've become too fear adverse and in turn we're all wallowing in the land of below average. We'd rather meet girls at big anonymous parties where we're immune to the burn of rejection. 

not actually our first date,
but I look good and no one reads captions anyways
I still remember asking Katie out to coffee for the first time. It was fun analyzing with my friends about how I should ask her out. It was fun feeling nervous around her, trying to decide the perfect time to ask. It was fun thinking about the date for days beforehand. The actual date was ok, but the traditional date is awesome because of all the fun that comes along with it.

I'm here to tell you. The traditional date is where it's at. Our world desperately needs more people willing to take risks and go big or go home. More guys need to be bold - ask girls out, cold, on dates. Girls you just met. Girls you've never had the courage to talk to. Girls you've been friends with your whole life. Shit. You guys are making me look bad. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

About That Life pt 1: pay peanuts, get monkeys

About That Life is a series of posts chronicling life as a med student.


When I woke up this morning and saw a post on the MUSC 2016 facebook group that accused the Worldviews in Medicine pre-reading as being evangelical Christian propaganda, I knew this day would make a good blog post. 

The idea of Worldviews in Medicine was to have a seminar presenting two controversial cases to four panelists covering a range of religions - we had a naturalist surgeon, a muslim gynecologist, a rabbi, and a catholic priest all contributing their two cents to two ethical dilemma cases. 

Sidenote - the class before WiM was taught by a teacher that just finished dealing with the LCME bureaucracy nightmare, and you could tell. She mentioned it was like being on anti-depressants, but I swear she was on a better high than any cracked out heroine addict I saw at the needle exchange. It's a good thing we just had a couple classes about impaired physicians.

Anyways, as soon as we got to the auditorium for WiM everyone was buzzing. We debated the %age of our class that considered themselves religious. I voted less than 50%. I still want to know some way to poll our entire class, if you have an idea - get at me. We then analyzed how to define religious. Does it make someone religious if they live in reverence to a higher power, but don't attend organized worship? Does it make someone religious if they watch every minute of every USC football game? 

The panelsits got started with the first case: a pregnant mother decided to take a cosmetic acne medication that was known to cause birth defects. Presenter - "so the patient was taking Accutane, a known class X teratogen." ...wtf? We're first year med students, did you really think we know what a class X teratogen is? The consensus on the first case was that it was boring. All four panelists agreed that the mother was wrong to take this drug. 

sidenote - looking around the auditorium, I'd say 25% of students are on their laptops studying histo slides or catching up on their facebook. 

The second case was about deciding who does and who doesn't get health care. It was at this point the catholic priest gave the most cookie cutter Christian answer I've ever heard. Love and lord were definitely thrown around and it was supposed to resemble a coherent answer. Newsflash - just because you're a Christian, every other word out of your mouth does not need to be Jesus. There are days I am embarrassed to be a Christian.. but I'll leave this topic alone.. for now.

At this point the Rabbi jumped in with his story that a Chinese man has kept himself alive for the past 14 years with a MacGyver'd dialysis machine. WHAT? That was proceeded by:


half-baked idea: Is Christianity even a different "worldview" than Judaism? I feel like if you get any group of four religiously affiliated people, they're going to have a similar worldview. What if we just rounded up the four most interesting and opinionated students in our class, got them some beer and just let them debate over controversial ethical questions: 

You volunteer at a homeless shelter/clinic, one of your dying patients says she wants to get hammered one last time before she dies. What do you do?  

WiM is great idea, and I respect all the people behind the scenes that organized this afternoon. Still, at the end of the day WiM is just another administrative event. I believe in bottom-up change. Like Intraprofessional Day before it, there's only so much you can learn in class.  If it's really important to us that we have better interprofessional communication or serious introspection into our worldviews it starts with drinking beers and talking a lot of shit. Good luck.

See you on the other side,

from ken


taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

What we know about Manti Te'o

Tom Geiger
A guest post by my friend Tom Geiger. In addition to being a Notre Dame fan, he's one of the most insightful people I know, so I had to get his thoughts on the Te'o story. The best way to describe Tom and I's relationship is that we once considered entering Kenyon's Battle of the Bands and rapping Forgot About Dre. He was Eminem, and I was Dre, obviously. We would've won in a landslide but I was too chicken to go through with it. Picture captions are my sidenotes and not the opinion of Tom Geiger. Enjoy.


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So being a Notre Dame fan over the past two decades has been a Sisyphean endeavor, and the past two weeks have clearly demonstrated this: from going undefeated in the regular season out of nowhere and becoming popular underdog picks in the BCS title game, to getting dismantled by a much better program for the one game everyone decides to watch, having their savior head coach nearly leave for a job in the NFL, and yeah, the star player is a total weirdo and potentially a fraud. It's definitely the sort of thing that makes you wonder why you care about sports to begin with, and whether it's a worthwhile use of your time. It probably isn’t, but whatever, go tribe.

don't worry, you're still a future millionaire
I’m not sure if I’m in the minority here, but to me it seems kind of obvious what went down. Te’o was legit duped, eventually figured out what was going on, and became too embarrassed to discuss the matter in public so he kept it going. That definitely doesn’t clear Manti 100%, but, well, he’s young. Stop and think about that for a second. And think about what his buddy over at Texas A&M is getting done (fun: google ‘Johnny Football halloween’). Or what every other DI athlete is doing every Saturday night. This is remarkably embarrassing.

What bothers me about my passion for sports is that I get caught up in instances where fans fail to use logic. I root for the shittiest teams in sports, which sucks, but it gives me an opportunity to watch most games without much of a vested interest. And when a team I like happens to find itself in an opportune position, like a national championship game, and proceeds to embarrass itself, it gives me a chance to reflect on the ways we can interpret sports from biased and unbiased perspectives.

Lance Armstrong being involved with this 
scandal is my favorite conspiracy theory
Regardless of whether Te’o lied or not, the argument that nobody could be delusional enough to believe in Lennay is bullshit for three reasons. One, more often than not, that statement is predicated on a hatred for everything Notre Dame. Two, we're talking about a guy who mentions “heavenly father” at some point during every sentence that escapes his mouth. He’s…kind of crazy. Three – and more importantly – we don’t know anything about Te’o. In fact, we don’t know anything about anyone in sports. They aren’t our friends. They don’t really give a shit about us. So why do we let our hearts get broken when they “betray” us? 

There’s an important lesson here. It’s useful to take a step back every once in a while and acknowledge that we’re watching grown men play games for money (and in this case, they aren’t even being paid). Before we get all bent out of shape and let our emotions get the best of us, let’s try and acknowledge reality. So as much as it pains me, I’m going to demonstrate how to let reality supersede subjectivity:

I don’t know if Lebron James is a total ass hat. He probably is. He pulled his pants down and took a horrendous shit on the team I like. No, I don’t like Lebron James. However, I do know that, objectively speaking, he’s by far the best player in basketball, so I’m going to acknowledge that because it’s true. I don’t solely attribute his success to the refs (when did everyone forget about Jordan rules?), and I’m not dense enough to believe that he’s playing second fiddle to anyone on his team. Lebron James is awesome at basketball.

pictures speak louder than words
I called my brother after Notre Dame beat Oklahoma and told him that Manti Te’o was the best player I’ve ever seen in gold and blue. He concurred. We both really love Manti Te’o. Now, I don’t really care much for the guy. He seems like a strange bird, and it appears that he’s an attention whore. But rationally speaking, it seems like he was actually duped in this situation. If you take a good look at the evidence, it stacks up heavily in his favor. It also strongly suggests that he let things get carried away. If something comes out in the future that contradicts this viewpoint, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I was incorrect. And hopefully most of ND nation will do the same, though we’ll probably never get the full story.

Hopefully this is something Manti Te’o will someday learn from. On the other hand, I don’t give a shit if he learns anything other than an NFL playbook. I still think he’s the best player I’ve ever seen at Notre Dame, and I think he’s going to be an outstanding linebacker in the NFL. Why? Because he has the right fundamentals, puts up good numbers, and he reportedly rallies his teammates pretty damn well. So, objectively speaking, Manti Te’o is awesome at football. And objectively speaking, he desperately needs a girlfriend. These are basically the only things we know for sure about Manti Te'o.

About That Life pilot episode: How do people die?

About That Life (I don't know what that means, but I think it sounds cool)

By fan request - I'm starting a series of recurring posts chronicling the everyday life of a med student. Any suggestions are appreciated. I have absolutely no idea what this series will look like, but on sidenote we give the people what they want, so here it is, the inaugural "About That Life." 

--

I was sitting in the library staring at this: 



At this point I realized it was time for a break. Heading out of the library to take a quick walk, I stopped to chat with Daniel, who was also suffering through a day in the library. sidenote - just in case you're reading this in the year 2100 as an anthropological study of what we did in the year 2012, the library was a place students can pretend to be productive while surfing this thing called the internet. It was surprisingly counterproductive for the world.

I can only assume Daniel knew what would happen when he told me about the new free coffee machine in the student lounge.. because two minutes later we were standing in front of the free coffee machine, drinking free coffee.  Two of our other friends that frequently inhabit the study lounge were taking advantage of the free coffee too, so we did what you do in the library, and stopped to chat. 

4 of us med students were intelligently discussing the possibilites cancer treatment held for the future. It felt right, the 4 of us, the future of medicine. At a pause in the conversation one person asked, "This is probably a stupid question, but how do people die of cancer?"

We stood dumbfounded for a couple seconds, then made up a few theories that were probably quarter-baked at best. And of course, this raised the bigger more obvious question - How do normal people die? 

First of all, what? We're med students, yet we don't know how people die? I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems important. Maybe they save the good stuff for later.

See you on the other side,

from ken


taking requests for future blog posts. please comment or email.

I'm going to build my own fucking med school

having a deep conversation 
about bison hats with my nephew
Last night my friend who was entertaining a five year old mentioned to me that he just doesn't get kids, they make no sense. That's what I love about kids. They haven't been trained by the hidden curriculum of the world, so they still don't give a shit what the world thinks. Kids are the masters of keeping it real.

--

"I'm going to build my own fucking hospital. And there'll be none of that there, thank you."
       - Paul Farmer

One of my favorite parts of undergrad was analyzing med schools.  Which med schools would be the best for me, what part of the country I wanted to live in, what sort of people I would meet, and so on.

Now that I'm in med school, one of my favorite past times is analyzing residency programs. Some of my classmates came in with a set vision for family practice or ortho.  sidenote - those two specialties seem to have the most people who are confident about their choice. Anyways, I'm not like that. I could see myself as a full-time basic scientist running the Whitehead, a peds heart surgeon, a psychiatrist, Dean of Medicine, the list goes on.

The common thread that I've noticed among my ideas is that I have two pools, and I jump back and forth depending on my state of mind: cynical vs idealistic. My wife once called me naively idealistic, yet my anatomy lab partner once called me the most cynical med student he'd ever met, so I guess I'm wired with a little bipolar disorder. 

On my idealistic days, I remember my days back at Kenyon College, when I wanted to change the world. [previous post: why Kenyon College kicks ass] I read Paul Farmer's Mountains Beyond Mountains, and I wanted to save people in rural Haiti from losing family members to treatable diseases



sidenote - the magic of Paul Farmer is not his work ethic, what makes him unique is that he maintained a child-like green-ness into his 30's and 40's. He ignored the lures of private practice, fast cars, and cynicism towards his patients. Instead he kept firm to his ideals and changed the world.

On other days, more cynical ones, I see the incredible work our administration has been putting in to renew our status as a licensed medical school and I sigh at the loops they have to jump through. 

As I've gone through med school, I see students in both the idealistic and cynical pools. Some of my classmates are in the House of God camp: bitter with the world, just want their degree, and get on with their life. Others of my classmates still naively hold on to their dreams of changing the world. The little that remains of my non-crushed soul goes out to those students. The hidden curriculum of med school is coming after them. If I ever build my own fucking med school, one question I want to answer is how to help students who are green stay green. I want to know how to cultivate more students who still have the energy to buck the culture and do what they're passionate about. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

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