Germy

I got the news that another physician had committed suicide a few days ago. Sadly, this is not surprising, but this time it was a person I knew. There has been a lot written recently about physician and medical student suicide and I will leave the numbers and such for other people. What I do want to address is what I perceive to be the underlying reason -- and again, many other smarter and more experienced people than myself have written about this, too. I feel like the suicide epidemic in our society, including physicians, but also other groups seeing huge increases (veterans and children) shares a common cause. As I reflected on the latest bad news, a question that was asked of me in an interview came to my mind. "What is the largest problem facing our society today?" Of course, this can be taken in many different directions, and I've never been asked that before in an interview (although I love these open ended questions -- my main problem is staying focused -- w...

I've avoided writing or posting about it. I've, mostly unsuccessfully, tried to avoid reading all of your writings or postings about it. Like most people I had strong feelings throughout the election cycle. For a long time I thought the Republican-come-lately's campaign was in cahoots with the DNC and HRC in order to ensure her victory. Which says such negative things about the whole process, or at least, about my outlook on the whole process. And in that incredible thought of mine -- that the election of our very President of these United States of America could be that corrupt -- is why I think our Reality Star just had his pilot reviewed and a new season approved. I've spent a lot of these past six months travelling around the country. I've been up and down the West Coast, in the bible belt, Florida, the Carolinas and around the Northeast. I've met a lot of nice people -- many of whom were going to vote for Trump precisely because of his political ...

Between work and residency interviews I have been travelling a lot in the past few months. Recently, during another drive up and down I-5 I tried to listen to the audio book The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, the first in a series of novels by Stephen King. In my teenage years I devoured Stephen King novels. I don't think I've touched one since. What I remember makes me think that most of his work should stay in the teenage years. However, I had a conversation with a friend who was excited about the series being turned into a movie and emphatically encouraged me to read the The Dark Tower  series again. I was unsure whether or not I had started this series before, but after getting into the audiobook, I was reminded that I indeed had. I was also reminded why I didn't continue the series. Wikipedia states that the King's work is inspired by a poem by Robert Browning , published in 1855. And, it is clear that his inspiration is reflected in the flowery, prose-like text. It...

This is my first rough draft of the second chapter. Struggles remain with this story and in some ways I feel compelled to just get stuff onto "paper" so I can clean it up and reorganize while knowing full well that I may not even like what I have. The idea of writing about historical events in fiction is so very intriguing to me and in that sense, I really want to make this work. However, my thoughts of how to do so are divided and it is showing in the writing -- the action is happening too fast -- huge momentous action scenes, such as an earthquake causing a mountainside to fall into a river, creating a huge wave that sets a canoe on the opposite shore's cliffside is a crazy, Hollywood-esque scene. I start and finish it with a few paragraphs. In chapter two, I have a man tumble down a huge set of rapids, nearly drowning and then saved within a few paragraphs. Perhaps I'm writing short story yet and I just haven't come to terms with it yet! And that is okay -- I...

Earlier this year I felt great relief when I matched into a graduate medical education program that would allow me to train for three years and at the end, allow me to take a test in which I could earn a board certification in internal medicine. During these three years a great transformation takes place -- a doctor in practice replaces a doctor in name only. After those three years I would spend two years learning how to be an intensive care doctor -- an intensivist. A good portion of my life's efforts for the past ten years had been in the name of this process. I've taken on over $400,000 worth of debt in this process. "Why do you want to be a doctor?" This is a question that any pre-medical student hears frequently. I came up with many clever and thoughtful answers (not mutually exclusive) during that time, and over the years since my numerous medical school interviews. At the heart of it all was a desire to have a job where at least an element of "nob...

A complete rewrite of the first chapter. I read the other chapter, with some editing, at a writing workshop last week and it fell flat. I received many solid critiques, namely that I was overreaching with my flashback scenes in the rough draft and that my mixing of modern "white-man" terms with Native American terms was confusing, and a little patronizing. I also took the outright references to the landmarks, rivers and mountains out and described them without the names. Simple things, like describing the canoe as being the length of 5 men laid end to end, versus a canoe 30 feet long. It has to be kept simple, though, and describing long distances, such as the width of the river is more difficult. We'll see how it shakes out. It will be an ongoing challenge to balance this particular facet of the story telling. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to the modern stories.  Chapter 1 (first major rewrite) The biggest were the size of my hand. Th...

While trying to fall asleep, which usually is not a problem for me, I've had my brain kindly bring up that one (take your pick) embarrassing episode from 9 years ago and I lay in bed just wincing at the memory. Or, perhaps its during a contemplative moment -- nevertheless, having these cringeworthy moments is a good way, provided they stay in check and an unstoppable avalanche of anxiety doesn't start to fall, to stay grounded -- to remember that all of us are vulnerable to doing stupid shit, at any time. Going back and reading old pieces of writing isn't so different. There are times I think, while checking out old short stories, essays, or whatnot, that "hey, you weren't a complete idiot back then." Most of the time, however it is very similar to that feeling of brain betrayal while trying to fall asleep. Right now, for instance, I went back to read the blog post detailing my plans for my first component of this project.  My main character, I say, is 3 years...

Character workshop Act III #1: Netanya, Israel -- but in the from of flashback, with main character in a coffee shop in Portland, OR while he tries to write a novel about his experience in Netanya, Israel during the Passover Massacre Date:  March 27th, 2012 (10 year after the Passover Massacre in 2002) Place: We will start the journey with the main character as he goes to his favorite coffee shop on upper Hawthorne, in Portland Oregon (I have a certain coffee shop in mind -- one that has a grand-opening this Saturday (congrats boys!)) to continue to work on his memoirs from his time as a medical resident who was working at Laniado Hospital as a Global Health Trip, when Hamas used a suicide bomber at the Park Hotel, where 30 civilians were killed and 140 were injured. This attack was the most deadly during the 2nd Intifada. Our character is not Jewish, and went to Israel for no particular reason other than being intrigued with their culture and heritage. He was a 2nd year...

Character workshop Act II #1: From the Tavern to the Bar (Stumptown Shanghai and the Sandbars of the Columbia) Date:  October, 9th 1890 (3 years prior to the completion of the railroad from San Francisco) Place: Starts just south of Portland Oregon, on a rickety wooden dock that juts out from the heavily wooded embankments on either side; they are bringing in Opium from China. From there we move to a saloon in what is now referred to as "Old Town" Portland. The "Mariners and Mounts" was an establishment that sat on the northern end of the warf of the west side of the Willamette river (the 2nd largest northward river in the world, with the Nile in Egypt being the largest) that is so named because they were known to have a large stable of for horses; for boarding and sale, and of course the sailors who worked on the numerous ships that served to move the goods out of the Pacific Northwest, either to San Francisco or China. This is a very busy establishment, ...

Today is a day that I've been waiting and fretting over for a very long time -- the day where I match into a post graduate medical education program and begin the last leg of training to become a fully licensed physician. I have a lot of thoughts and could opine for hours over what this means and how brutal this process can be at times -- but will leave it for later. I just thought this occasion warranted a place marker in this blog.

Character workshop Act I #1: The Earthquake and Landslide Date: October 12th, 1492 Place: 30 miles east of present day Portland Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge at the western edge of the Bonneville Landslide, which was a 30 mile wide swath of land which fell off the side of Table Mountain, which resides on the Washington side of the river, which is the north side. The people who I will have pushing eastward along the Columbia River, leaving their coastal village to meet with the Walla Walla tribe, in order to trade -- but also to show off their young first born son, in hopes of someday having a marriage between their chief's daughter and the most successful trader's son, from the Clatsop tribe who live at the mouth of the Columbia River, where it feeds the Pacific Ocean. It has been proposed that in light of recent carbon dating from a Douglas Fir tree 150 feet under the fill from the Bonneville Slide showing a range of 1550 to 1750, whereas previous estimates h...