Wow. I haven't seen or read or thought about this blog in ages. I only remembered it existed by way of conversation with Deepali. Lots of changes since I last wrote. I am applying in the one specialty I thought I would never do : Internal Medicine. One can never deny their destiny, so it seems. And I am happy. Deeply happy from within.

Yay for life. You spend most of it thinking you're completely screwing up and then one day you wake up and realize that everything is going to be okay.

Bwa ha ha ha ha.

I'm going to have to stop starting my posts with a maniacal laugh. I can't help it.

I've learned that life can still exist without going through residency!

http://www.02138mag.com/lists/PC/1112.html

Consider Dr. Anita Goel or Dr. Anula Jayasurlya ... two MD/PhDs who have taken the path of biotechnology and venture capitalism to make life exiciting .... without going through the process of residency. In some respects, med school seems like such a waste if you don't do a residency to become a competant physician in something. On the otherhand, residency also means at least 5 years of misery and sleep deprivation so one might as well find something exiting and fun to do with one's time otherwise ... especially if it means making loads of money.

Given that my first entrepreneurial venture [Advantej Web Designs ... my sole-proprietorship that I set up in high school] was a royal failure due to my inability to charge people for what I liked to do for fun .... I'm not so sure the whole venture capitalism thing is for me.

I'm in Colorado right now, studying for the second part of the National Board Exam.

I finished my subinternship in General Surgery have decided that it is most definately not for me. I was pretty depressed about the whole thing too because, well, if my end goal [now in question] is to go off into the jungle to operate ... then being a general surgeon is pretty much the best thing to be. Unfortunately, I have realized, I could never survive a General Surgery residency. I mean, physically, I probably could survive. Emotionally, I could probably pull through. Spiritually, I would die. I know, without a doubt, that 7 - 9 years of self-flogging would kill my idealism and my will to serve. My sense, from seeing residents here, is that a residency in General Surgery teaches you to value self-preservation above all else -- its a game of every man for himself.

I've realized that I function better in an environment where team-work is key. Its a lot more fun to work with people than to work against them. That's why I loved Ortho ... there were no hierachies of power to climb over to get shit done. People communicated clearly with each other without fear of being roasted or bullied by their seniors. People worked together, got stuff done, and had fun while they were at it. So ortho is looking like a pretty viable candidate for residency.

I looked into the possibility of my doing Ortho in the jungle ... entirely possible. In fact, I'm going to Haiti in February to do just that. Pro bono ortho work there. And then later on I'll be in India doing reconstructive hand surgery for leprosy patients.

So that's where things stand right now. There is a small part of me that thinks that in my heart of hearts, I really should be a family doc ... because I'm nice.

Sorry. I have very little time to write or think or otherwise contemplate my life. Things are going well; ortho is fun. The dudes are great to hang out with. I don't think its me for reasons not entirely clear to me.

The Harvard Conference absolutely rocked. I made oodles of contacts in UNICEF, the UN, MSF, IMC, etc etc ... great people doing interesting work. The ony disconcerting thing about the conference, however, was the fact that it consisted mostly of old white men. The lack of ethnic diversity in a room where the discussion focused most on disaster releif in Africa and Asia was simply appauling.

In any event, it was great to talk to people who have been in the field for decades and see their perspective on life -- the good and the bad.

And ... now back to the books hardcore. Ortho Sub-I [which I am terrified of] starts tommorow!!!!

Eep.

Ortho Sub-I: T minus five days and counting ....

Signed up for Ortho Trauma ... get to work with Baumgaerdner ... who, turns out, is a fellow Stanford alum. I checked him out on the Stanford alumni website ... dude majored in Art.

Recent reads:

[1] In the Merde for Love - by Stephen Clarke

I picked this book up in anticipation of my brother's immigration to France for a post doc position. I figured, I should get a headstart and learn a bit about French culture and French language, all the while getting a laugh or two to boot. Perhaps reading this book was not the best choice. It has its moments of utter hilarity, I admit -- and believe me, I appreciate those parts -- BUT in general, I found Clarke's description of his hero's philandering ways to be overdone ... and tiresome, really. And worse yet, I only learned one French word from the entire book: "merde" ... which might as well be used to describe the book itself. Rating: 5/10

[2] Social Intelligence : Beyond IQ, beyond Emotional intelligence -- by Daniel Goleman [in progress]

Fascinating so far. I have always thought of myself as socially inept ... so I picked this up to continue my never-ending psychoanalysis of myself. I'll let you know how it goes.

Upcoming events:

[1] Cell phone -- I dropped my cell phone into a pile of merde. I doesn't work anymore. I'm getting a new one come Tuesday. Sorry if I haven't been returning any of your calls.

[2] Humanitarian Health Conference - Sept 6-8 at Harvard
I'll let you know how this goes.