Why I would not be a good medical student

As I've been watching Bekah work and study and excel in what she is doing this semester, I've come to a couple of conclusions.

Conclusion #1 - my wife is an amazing woman, with an amazing mind, who does amazing things.

Conclusion #2 - while I'm no dummy (after all, I have extra letters after my name too), I would make a lousy med student.

Here's some reasons why,

Reason #1:  I do not have the long-term ability to sit and focus and study and compartmentalize information the way she has to.  When I was going through my graduate work, I DID put in long hours, practicing and composing.  VERY different disciplines than what she is doing on a daily basis.  My long hours were spent concentrating on creativity and physical activity (practice).  Developing artistic expression.  I love that stuff.  I thrive on it.  I hated the classroom stuff I had to do - graduate level music history was the bane of my existence.  I dreaded it, I put it off as long as I could, and I got by with the minimal amount of work necessary to pass.  

On the other hand, I watch Bekah.  She puts in horrendous amounts of time - for the current unit (hematology and neoplasms or some such - has to do with blood and circulatory disorders) she's been spending probably an AVERAGE of 10 to 12 hours daily "in the books."  Not only does she have an 800 page coursepack chock full of data and information and cases and examples and slides, but she also is expected to collect, collate, and memorize all of the drugs related to blood disorders, their side effects, mechanisms, and what disorders they are used for, any important interactions, etc.  Plus she has to do the same for all the different types of disorders, diseases, cancers, etc.  I'm sure I'm missing something in there somewhere too.  And she has to do it all over a four-week period of time, for ONE test that will be 120 questions in length, and is pass / fail.

I struggled to spend more than a couple hours in sequence studying data intensive stuff like this.  While she doesn't exactly love the amount of time she spends, at the same time, I see her thriving on the process.  She loves to make detailed charts, diagrams, color-coded flash cards, tables, etc.  Her mind is extremely good at organizing data and memorizing it for later recall.  

Reason #2:  I am a scatterbrained nutty-professor type.  I do not like structure, and I especially do not like operating under the strictures of a tight calendar and firm deadlines and such.  I like to work from inspiration, to follow the muse, if you will. 

Unfortunately, in medical school, there is no muse.  It is literally their way or fail.  Show up on time or get written up in the professionalism log.  Meet the deadline or fail and have to do it over again.  Pass the test or "remediate" (one of my favorite med school terms for "take it again because you didn't pass it the first time").  Which makes sense - you can't follow the muse when a patient is on the operating table - you do things in the right order at the right time with the right tools or someone dies. 

Fortunately, this is how Bekah thinks.  It is NOT how I think.  

Reason #3:  I am lousy at playing the game.  I want people to value me and my contributions for what they are.  I don't want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops just so that I can do what I want to do.  One of the reasons I didn't particularly like academia, even though I worked in that world for 14 years.

Med school is filled with hoop jumping.  Some of it relevant (obviously, you need to know your anatomy to be a doctor), but some of it definitely not so relevant.  Some of it "you are going to do this because we say you have to".  In elementary school, we called it busy work.  Bekah calls it "stupid stuff that wastes time I could be using to study."  :)  Yet, she is playing the game, and playing it well.  You see, I think she actually likes medicine enough that she is willing to put up with a certain amount of gamesmanship in order to get to where she wants to be at the end.  I'm just not that way.

Ultimately, that's why Bekah is succeeding in her second year of medical school and I am at home taking care of the kids, teaching piano lessons and doing my church stuff, and supporting her every way that I can.

We do balance each other well...she is a pessimist (she'll say she's a realist).  I'm an optimist.  She is organized, I am scatterbrained.  She is a rules and structure person, I'm a follow-my-heart-and-my-gut kindof guy.  

That's why people like me end up with degrees in music, not medicine.  And why I would not be a good medical student.

Disappointment with the rhetoric of the right...

The election has come and gone.  The president has been re-elected.

As someone who considers himself a conservative politically, I found this disappointing; however, there have been some recent things I've seen and heard from folks on the right (conservatives, Tea Party types, and "Christians") that have certainly made me question the intentions of many of those who are outspoken "conservatives."

While I may disagree with some of the policies of the current administration and the democratic (liberal) party, particularly when it comes to their approaches to taxes, spending, some social issues, and national debt, that doesn't mean that I allow myself to demean, degrade, or in other ways do things to try to make them out as evil people.  That isn't my job - judgement for those folks is, ultimately, in the hands of God, to whom they will eventually have to answer for their actions and their choices.

Many voices on the right during the election were speaking out in volumes against the negative advertising coming from President Obama's campaign - claiming that his campaign was much more about making Mitt Romney out to be an evil rich businessman who was out of touch with normal people, wanted the worst for women, and wanted to take away people's jobs and ship them overseas, than it was about showing a positive light on the President's record or goals for the future of our country.  That's a topic for another whole post...but since the election ended, I have heard and read a great deal of vitriol coming from the same folks who were critical of the President's negative campaign, directed towards the president and those in his party.  Things that have been extremely negative and demeaning and, quite frankly, churlish and immature behavior.

I occasionally listen to a conservative radio host whose program airs in the mornings.  Yesterday, as I was driving to pick up my son from preschool, I was horrified to listen to the host and his associates discussing the governor of New Jersey.  They began by making fun of his weight in a way that reminded me of things I heard in elementary school.  Then they began mocking his appearance with President Obama during the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.  Ultimately, they shifted over to taking the same kind of potshots at the president, to the point of making crude sexual jokes about both men.  Needless to say, I found their conversation crude and offensive.  Then they had the audacity to ask their listeners to donate money to their program so that they can expand.  My thought was, why would I want to send money to you so that you can do more of THIS?  How does THIS behavior do ANYTHING to promote conservative values, or to help bridge the obvious gap in our nation between conservative and liberal folks?  It does nothing but hurt, demean, and destroy.

I also recently saw an article posted by one of my wife's friends on Facebook.  It was a response (called a "fact check") to a blog post written by an individual from the "Christian Men's Defense Network."  The original blog post has evidently been taken down; for the sake of decency, I will avoid posting a link to either the original blog or the fact check (if you really want to read it, you can find it on your own).  I was appalled to read that the original blogger, posting under the guise of being a conservative Christian person, wrote a fairly lengthy article detailing that he felt Obama won the election because he won the "slut vote".  I found the pieces of the original article that are floating around the internet to be extremely offensive; and yet I remember another noted conservative radio host going on about the exact same topic (albeit with less blatantly offensive language) around the time when the whole issue of contraception became a big part of the election debate.

In addition to these two obviously appalling instances, I have seen many, many casual Facebook posts (and comments) from friends and acquaintances of mine who consider themselves conservatives, that have contained large amounts of vitriol, angst, anger, and rhetoric that, to me, shows nothing but intellectual cowardice and ignorance.  I have seen instances of friendships being damaged or ruined by comments like these.  This is NOT the way of wisdom and healing.  It only serves to further widen the divide between conservative and liberal, between the right and the left.  It is no wonder our government is gridlocked and nothing can ever seem to get accomplished!

I remain a conservative thinker; however, my respect for much of the conservative media and voices in our nation has diminished considerably.  I can only hope and pray that those on the left do not paint me with the same brush as they paint these few outspoken individuals....because my intent is to approach debates with intellectual integrity, to discuss differences without demeaning others, and to respect people whose opinions are different from my own.

I may not be able to persuade people to think like I do, but I can certainly make a much better impression on them - as a conservative, Christian person - by relating to them with love and respect than I can by demeaning them and treating them with derision.  Perhaps the next election cycle will swing things back in a direction I would prefer, but if it does not, it isn't the end of my world.  My role as a Christian is to respect the authorities and support them - remembering that they are there because God allowed them to be.  Let me issue a call to other conservatives - please, think before you speak, especially if you have influence on a national level.  Discourse and dialogue are much more effective ways to get your ideas across than are name calling and denigration.  And ultimately, if you disagree with the party in power, see what you can do to change it in the future.  Calling them names demonstrates nothing but immaturity.