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.
No comments:
Post a Comment