Wednesday . September 26 . 2001 . 9:00pm It's just really too much of an exercise in banality and excuse-making to explain why I've been playing Guy Incognito these past two months, so let's just say I'm back and leave it at that. Re: 9/11/01, since it would seem like such an egregious oversite to not mention it, I'm fine, all my friends and family are fine, and I'm still in the process, however slowly and guiltily, of getting back to normal life as I know it. It would be a lie, however, to pretend that I haven't thought about the events of that day every day for the past two weeks, and mourned the loss of New York as it used to be. To be a New York native, to have grown up and spent pretty much my whole life here, it's been quite a visceral experience dealing with what happened that Tuesday. The thought that kept running through my head was, "They blew a giant hole into our beautiful city." I haven't yet been down to Ground Zero, and frankly, I don't want to see it. Because the more I watch it on the news, and the more I see the footage of twisted girders and pulverized cement, the harder it is for me to hold onto my own memories of how beautiful and majestic all all once was. I live on the 31st floor of my building, and after two weeks, it's finaly become possible for me to look out of my window onto the miniaturized panoramic view of downtown Manhattan without flinching at the fact that the Towers are gone. But somehow that hurts more, that the inconceivable has somehow become the norm. * * * But this is about getting back. And moving on. As I've become something of a top-ranking amateur in avoiding-thinking-about-things-that-I-don't-want-to-think-about, I'll now simultaneously catch you up on the Key Lessons Learned so far during my third year of med school, and allow you all to play along with the home version of the game, "What Kind of Doctor is Michelle Going to Be?" Recently, I've become preoccupied with this game myself, as I'm coming to realize that I'll have to make some rather big decisions sooner rather than later with respect to the direction my life and career are headed. Woah, I'm talking about my "career." I'm old. All I really know about are the rotations I've gone through so far. So here are my opinions on the Pros and Cons of each. These are only my opinions, people. No haughty e-mails from Ob-Gyns around the land regarding my snobbery, if you please. PSYCHIATRY Pro: Lots of time spent talking with patients. Your time with patients is sacred. Con: Patients are kinda nuts sometimes. Pro: Really interesting, forces you to use your brain, necessarily involves taking the whole patient and their lifestyle into account with respect to their treatment. Con: Sometimes you wonder, "am I really helping these patients at all?" They don't always get a whole lot better. Or even a little bit better. I spent five weeks with one patients on Psych and by the time I left, she was exactly the same. Pro: Hey, Psychiatrists have a nice lifestyle. I have to say it. Con: "Are you a real doctor?" Could I handle getting this question every day? Pro: Lots of room for personal style. There are no absolute rights and wrongs, no hardfast answers. Con: There are no absolute rights and wrongs, no hardfast answers. OBSTETRICS and GYNECOLOGY Pro: You get to deliver babies! Everyone loves babies, right? And moms are usually healthy and happy afterwards, unless something horrible goes wrong. Con: Babies are born at three o'clock in the morning. You will be tired and haggard and never see your family. Also, if things do go wrong, it's stressful, and you could end up having a nervous breakdown a la Dr. Green in ER after that pregnant lady died because he fucked up somehow. Pro: You basically get to be the primary care physician for a whole lot of women. I can dig it. Con: Do I really want to look at vaginas my whole life? Pro: You get to do a lot of procedures. C-sections, tubal ligations, plucking out people's uteruses and ovaries, other stuff. Con: I really don't like being in the OR. Shhh, don't tell anyone. UROLOGY Pro: What a timely field to go into. Everyone's talking about prostate cancer. It's the buzz on the street, baby! Con: Do I really want to spend my whole life doing digital rectal exams? Pro: Pediatric Urology, the service I was on, is really fun. You work with kids, you see interesting cases (read: not prostate stuff 24/7), and you get to do some neat procedures. Also, as a side note, you do a lot of circumcisions. Con: Eight years of training for Peds Uro. What was that again? EIGHT YEARS OF TRAINING. Pro: Pretty good lifestyle for a surgical subspecialty. And I guess you make a lot of money or whatever. Con: That whole disliking the OR really puts a crimp in those plans. ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY (I'm not quite done with this rotation yet, but I'll try to talk about it anyway) Pro: You get to wield power tools with all the expertise and finesse of a young Bob Villa. Con: I never wanted to be Bob Villa. Pro: Fixing up broken bones. Could be pretty interesting if you're into that kind of thing. Con: I'm not into that kind of thing. Pro: You make a lot of money, I suppose. Con: No amount of money is worth it if you don't love what you're doing. * * * I saw "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" the other day. You know I loves me some Woody Allen, but I have to say it, that movie was really pretty bad. And pretty sneaky how Woody managed to write his character into the affections of all three female characters, including that of the ditzy secretary, played with wit and verve by Elizabeth Berkeley, perhaps best known (before "Showgirls" propelled her to the top of the Hollywood C-list) as the determined but brittle Jessie Spano on "Saved by the Bell." |
Wednesday . September 26 . 2001 . 9:00pm It's just really too much of an exercise in banality and excuse-making to explain why I've been playing Guy Incognito these past two months, so let's just say I'm back and leave it at that. Re: 9/11/01, since it would seem like such an egregious oversite to not mention it, I'm fine, all my friends and family are fine, and I'm still in the process, however slowly and guiltily, of getting back to normal life as I know it. It would be a lie, however, to pretend that I haven't thought about the events of that day every day for the past two weeks, and mourned the loss of New York as it used to be. To be a New York native, to have grown up and spent pretty much my whole life here, it's been quite a visceral experience dealing with what happened that Tuesday. The thought that kept running through my head was, "They blew a giant hole into our beautiful city." I haven't yet been down to Ground Zero, and frankly, I don't want to see it. Because the more I watch it on the news, and the more I see the footage of twisted girders and pulverized cement, the harder it is for me to hold onto my own memories of how beautiful and majestic all all once was. I live on the 31st floor of my building, and after two weeks, it's finaly become possible for me to look out of my window onto the miniaturized panoramic view of downtown Manhattan without flinching at the fact that the Towers are gone. But somehow that hurts more, that the inconceivable has somehow become the norm. * * * But this is about getting back. And moving on. As I've become something of a top-ranking amateur in avoiding-thinking-about-things-that-I-don't-want-to-think-about, I'll now simultaneously catch you up on the Key Lessons Learned so far during my third year of med school, and allow you all to play along with the home version of the game, "What Kind of Doctor is Michelle Going to Be?" Recently, I've become preoccupied with this game myself, as I'm coming to realize that I'll have to make some rather big decisions sooner rather than later with respect to the direction my life and career are headed. Woah, I'm talking about my "career." I'm old. All I really know about are the rotations I've gone through so far. So here are my opinions on the Pros and Cons of each. These are only my opinions, people. No haughty e-mails from Ob-Gyns around the land regarding my snobbery, if you please. PSYCHIATRY Pro: Lots of time spent talking with patients. Your time with patients is sacred. Con: Patients are kinda nuts sometimes. Pro: Really interesting, forces you to use your brain, necessarily involves taking the whole patient and their lifestyle into account with respect to their treatment. Con: Sometimes you wonder, "am I really helping these patients at all?" They don't always get a whole lot better. Or even a little bit better. I spent five weeks with one patients on Psych and by the time I left, she was exactly the same. Pro: Hey, Psychiatrists have a nice lifestyle. I have to say it. Con: "Are you a real doctor?" Could I handle getting this question every day? Pro: Lots of room for personal style. There are no absolute rights and wrongs, no hardfast answers. Con: There are no absolute rights and wrongs, no hardfast answers. OBSTETRICS and GYNECOLOGY Pro: You get to deliver babies! Everyone loves babies, right? And moms are usually healthy and happy afterwards, unless something horrible goes wrong. Con: Babies are born at three o'clock in the morning. You will be tired and haggard and never see your family. Also, if things do go wrong, it's stressful, and you could end up having a nervous breakdown a la Dr. Green in ER after that pregnant lady died because he fucked up somehow. Pro: You basically get to be the primary care physician for a whole lot of women. I can dig it. Con: Do I really want to look at vaginas my whole life? Pro: You get to do a lot of procedures. C-sections, tubal ligations, plucking out people's uteruses and ovaries, other stuff. Con: I really don't like being in the OR. Shhh, don't tell anyone. UROLOGY Pro: What a timely field to go into. Everyone's talking about prostate cancer. It's the buzz on the street, baby! Con: Do I really want to spend my whole life doing digital rectal exams? Pro: Pediatric Urology, the service I was on, is really fun. You work with kids, you see interesting cases (read: not prostate stuff 24/7), and you get to do some neat procedures. Also, as a side note, you do a lot of circumcisions. Con: Eight years of training for Peds Uro. What was that again? EIGHT YEARS OF TRAINING. Pro: Pretty good lifestyle for a surgical subspecialty. And I guess you make a lot of money or whatever. Con: That whole disliking the OR really puts a crimp in those plans. ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY (I'm not quite done with this rotation yet, but I'll try to talk about it anyway) Pro: You get to wield power tools with all the expertise and finesse of a young Bob Villa. Con: I never wanted to be Bob Villa. Pro: Fixing up broken bones. Could be pretty interesting if you're into that kind of thing. Con: I'm not into that kind of thing. Pro: You make a lot of money, I suppose. Con: No amount of money is worth it if you don't love what you're doing. * * * I saw "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" the other day. You know I loves me some Woody Allen, but I have to say it, that movie was really pretty bad. And pretty sneaky how Woody managed to write his character into the affections of all three female characters, including that of the ditzy secretary, played with wit and verve by Elizabeth Berkeley, perhaps best known (before "Showgirls" propelled her to the top of the Hollywood C-list) as the determined but brittle Jessie Spano on "Saved by the Bell." |
Getting back. |
