Midterm report/rant on MCATing

After a not-so-fantastic performance on the PS section of a Kaplan full length this morning, I just about flipped the table over. My studious side's instinct was to maniacally go over every wrong answer, but then for some reason, I couldn't do it. Fuck it. I'm not doing the rest of this test.

It's actually quite scary how it took until this morning for me to recognize that I haven't been myself; I've been eating one meal a day (maybe two), sleeping less than 6 hours, and willingly throwing myself into isolation. I'm losing my drive in the lab and I haven't been going on walks at all.

So thanks Kaplan for triggering a burnout breakdown. I've found my wind.

Also this morning.

This morning.

 

Come at me, MCAT.

Someone else revisited

Some five years ago, I wrote a column in our high school newspaper about a fatal car accident (The Search - Thanksgiving). Though I only knew the young woman's name from glancing at my sister's tennis tournament draws, hearing the news of her death while still a teenager was nonetheless a jarring thought.

In that comic (it was part of a two week-long sequence in which Calvin's house gets robbed while they are attending a wedding), Calvin's parents touched on something that I've long since internalized. It's a rather morbid rationale, but I think one of the main reasons I can push myself to keep working hard year after year is because of the fear that something irrationally tragic could always happen to me. True, I still can't imagine myself getting stabbed by a  deranged college dorm roommate, but I'm sure that neither could George Chen (one of the victims of the Isla Vista shootings/stabbings who was from my high school graduating class). These sorts of things happen, and to be honest, I'm not so sure if there's that much we can really do once the situation presents itself.

In any event, the "punchline" of that column was that we rarely see ambulances screaming down the street and stop to wonder about the people behind the situation -- does John, the father riding along in the backseat, root for the Red Sox or the Yankees? Does Michael, the middle child with his tibia jutting out of his leg...does Michael have friends at school?

Invariably, everyone riding along in the ambulance is a human being with a story worth telling. But as far as commuting drivers and their passengers are concerned, the distinctive sound of a blaring ambulance merely means to look all around your car to first identify the source, then to adjust your position as needed to allow the ambulance through.

I realize this is a rather inane idea, that we should stop to think about the stories and thoughts that are also riding along in the backseat of those ambulances. Yet from a young age, for some reason I used to picture myself as the patient riding in the ambulance or as an onlooking family member worrying whether my child, spouse or relative would be okay. You could argue that it was simply a product of my imagination and role-playing tendencies, but I think on some level, I knew and recognized the humanity of the situation -- of an ambulance frantically blasting through traffic, inconveniencing many lives but saving lives as well.

So no, I don't believe that I have the most riveting explanation for why I developed an interest in medicine, and that's fine with me. But whether I'm changing the media for iPSCs from cystic fibrosis patients, watching ambulances pull into Mass General while I'm pushing patients around in wheelchairs, or watching an ENT surgeon excise a tumor from someone's larynx, I always try to remember that there are stories behind the people that I'm ultimately trying to help.  It's the aspect of humanity that makes medicine more than just the science of the human body.

After all, one day that patient riding in the ambulance may very well be me.

The Genie -- (a thought experiment I came up with while studying for the MCAT)

You are walking along some generic beach in some nice tropical island. You are, of course, in a dream.

You happen to spot a lamp lying out near the rocks, and you squeal in delight as you sprint over towards it. But you soon see that this is no golden Aladdin lamp. No, this lamp is made of crumpled aluminum foil, with cheap gold paint flaking off the handle and crusted marinara sauce from some teenager's Bagel Bites. 

It's quite a sketchy lamp. Still, who are you to judge a magical genie's choice of residence, especially when he can grant wishes? You rub the lamp anyway.

GENIE: *wheeze* (waving arms, trying to clear the dust and sand) What the bloody hell do you want?! Egh.
You: So you're the genie in this lamp?
GENIE: (glaring) Look here sonny, you don't go around asking a homeless guy if that cardboard box he's sitting on is his house, so where the hell do you get off on asking something so asinine?
You: Oh, no no, that's not what I meant at all! I uh, I really like your lamp! It's very, um, economical.
GENIE: ...
You:  Anyway, do I get my three wishes?
GENIE: (pulling the lid back down) 
You: Wait, no! Come on, I'll bet an old genie like you has granted tons of wishes before! 
GENIE: Yup, calling me an old fart is definitely helping your case right now.
You: Please? Please? Please? Please? Ple-
GENIE: Whoever told you "please" is the magic word was full of shit and couldn't tell the difference between magic and a light bulb. Stop that.
You: (pause) Please?
GENIE: ....Fine. I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else who's found me on this generic beach that doesn't even exist. On another note, have you noticed how everyone around here is either naked or can fly?
You: ...
GENIE: So to answer your question, yes, you do get to say three wishes-
You: Sweet! My first wish will be to ha-
GENIE: ....three wishes that I will take away from you.
You: What?!
GENIE: You say three wishes, and on your command, I will remove them from your conscience for as long as you live. You won't ever think about those wishes again.
You: Why on earth would I want to do that?!
GENIE: Suit yourself. You'd be surprised at the results though; no doubt that I make people happier than that idiotic Smurf of a genie in that lame Disney movie.

 *************************

Be careful what you wish for because you often don't end up any happier than you were before, blah blah, cliche stuff. That's a lesson everyone should have heard by now.

But let me ask you this: would you take the genie's offer?

My instinctive reaction is to say no; figuring out why that's the case has proven much more difficult.