Germy

I've always fancied the idea of writing a novel. Many readers, at one time or another, get this tickle -- just as watching a movie lends itself to wanting to be an actor. What kind of novel shall I write? That is a great question -- and prompts this primordial type of hopeful feeling in me; of potential being manifested and worlds yet unimagined being born. I like interesting. And while my life is enhanced by finding interest in just about everything I come across, it means my threshold for holding my interest is low, which means needing to work to ensure optimizing just how interesting I can make it. Subjective as it is, the best part of "interesting" is that seeing as how I'm in the middle of becoming an physician, I have relatively little pressure to move expediently nor is there any reason to write a novel other than for the pleasure in the pursuit of creating something that I can take pride in. Simple as that. On an ongoing basis, I plan on developing th...

The board exam season of this summer is long gone, and the past couple of months have had me engaged in the activity of what will most likely be my final form as a physician. For the very first time, I've actually been directly functioning -- albeit in a truncated, supervised fashion -- in the capacity I've been working towards for nearly the past 10 years. Exciting Shtuff, to be sure.  Spending so many hours in the hospital provides for the opportunity to get to know many patients, some over a day, some over weeks. I've also been training in Oregon, the place where I grew up and in many ways, consider home even though I officially live in California, these days, and haven't officially had a residence in Oregon for 10 years. There is something very easy about being around and getting to know people who call the same place home. One particular patient from a few weeks ago who was in the hospital for a condition which was considerably more serious than he wanted ...

I've heard of other people describe this kind of experience. A memory that has persisted and serves to mark when the internal dialog began. I was three years old, and I remember going out the back door of the church I grew up in, standing on the concrete pad and looking at the huge oak tree and thinking to myself, 'I'm three." It was just something that resonated with me, the fact that I was a person who recognized that I recognized my own existence. I'm sure thats not what I thought, explicitly, at the time, but it is the essence of the experience. I would venture to guess that just about all of us, all of humanity has experiences like this, whether or not they persist as memory landmarks, is hard to say. Memory and the ability (or, inability) to memorize is such an intriguing aspect of life. Just about every other day I take the dog for walks at the nearby park, and have, on and off for the past few years and usually, we park at one particular lot and go for ...

It was late Sunday evening, after a day filled with reading and practice questions, that I was browsing Amazon Prime (through the Roku, on the television) as I was looking for something to watch while I did busywork that I found "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" was available -- the entire catalog. I watched a few episodes and I got to thinking that many people -- no matter the age, would benefit from watching this show.  Just like reviewing the fundamental science behind medicine -- albeit, at a relative superficial level, is imperative to understanding physiologic and pathologic processes and the treatment decisions that stem from this understanding, so is hearing Mr. Roger's positive reinforcement aimed at children who are growing and trying to find their way in this world.  I think my favorite part when I was a child was the make-believe portion where the trolley would come out from the hole in the wall and then go back into the wall, where the king, queen a...

Being a medical student is such an interesting place to be. We are in interesting places literally, metaphorically, philosophically, emotionally and of course financially. There is a lot written, and a there continues to be much written about the med student experience. It is definitively a formative experience and I can't help but write about the experience. A few spurious thoughts on the process: Today, one of the Obstetricians I was with asked me what other rotations I had done this year -- something that I've been asked at every rotation this year. This time I, with a brief but glorious pause, told him that I had already done all of my cores -- and had also served at a free clinic and spent time with an interventional cardiologist. Of course I knew that this was going to be the last gig of 3rd year -- but that was the first time I had articulated that point and it was pleasant. We then chatted how crazy it was that this was the chunk of time that I was to know exactly...