Lessons

The patients you like the best, who always seem so nice and down-to-earth, all have something terribly wrong with their character that you discover after a day or two. Like a barely-concealed streak of racism. So disappointing. And brain stem infarctions can happen really fast.

Good Grades and What the Hell Am I Doing?

I managed an A in General Chemistry...extra credit is the shit. Even better, after looking at all the grades, I would have managed the A even without the extra credit, which makes me feel pretty damn awesome. I'd feel even more awesome if I wasn't starting pre-calc and ethics tomorrow, but what's a girl gonna do? So, I've been thinking about life and the universe and my place in it and health care and blah blah blah. Not that I'm rethinking my decision to go in to medicine, not at all. I've just been redefining what exactly I want out of life and a career, and what kind of doctor I want to be. Basically, I've been crafting a personal mission statement, which sounds all self-help and new-agey, but it is what it is. I don't fit the stereotype of a pre-med. I'm kind of a hippy. I had an attempted home birth with my second pregnancy. I am wary of vaccines (I do think that they are, in general, a good thing. But I don't trust their manufacturers when they say they are perfectly safe. They aren't. But, IMO, they are better than the alternative.) I think that good healthy food, rest or light exercise, plenty of water, and plenty of sleep is the best medicine 9 times out of 10. There are things at the hospital that drive me absolutely crazy. Food is a huge issue. Jello and pudding are not healthy foods we should be giving to post-op patients. Giving a patient in the CVICU a processed turkey sandwich and a snack-bag of "light" potato chips is assinine. And why in the hell do we hand out sodas like they are water?!? Going through all of this in my head gave me pause. Namely, if there is so much I think is wrong with medicine, should I really be a part of it. The answer I came to was, of course I should. It's something I feel passionately about, and my best chance at effecting change is from the inside. And I need to take some of my own damn advice. Good food and enough sleep have been in short supply around here lately.

Hypochondriac

Working at the hospital has turned me into a hypochondriac. That spot of poison ivy on my wrist that's been sticking around? MRSA. Ate to much dinner resulting in indigestion? OMG, I've got c-diff. Menstrual cramps = ovarian cancer. Stop the insanity. I can only imagine it will get worse when I start medical school.

What a difference 10 years makes.

A little over 10 years ago, I was in school, majoring in business and hating life. I got C's, D's, and F's, sometimes pulling off an A or B when I found a class slightly less mind-numbing than the others. My cumulative g.p.a. was something like 2.48, and up until a few months ago, that was just fine with me.

After my husband's heart attack and some soul searching, this latent desire I had to have a career in health care grew into a full blown drive to be a doctor, and suddenly I had to care what kind of grades I got. When you have grades like mine, that really sucks.

So now I'm in Gen Chem I, pulling off a B+ and struggling to bring it up to the A I really need. Never in a million years would I have imagined I would be dissatisfied with a B+.

I have 2 more exams, a final, and a lab final left. If I can get A's on all of them I can pull off an A in the class. No pressure. And if I do it, I am so celebrating with cocktails. Which is one thing that hasn't changed over the last 10 years.