Wed 22 Aug 2007
Well, this post goes out to all my new readers, visitors, site-linkers, email-subscribers, Google-searchers, etc. etc. etc. There sure are a lot of you! I truly appreciate all your comments and support. This blog is cathartic for me – it’s really nice to know that it’s a fun read for you.
On to the goods. Neurology has been a lot of fun. This became apparent when I had to pull myself away from work at 5:15 – my team was laughing so hard about our day, we had tears in our eyes. It wasn’t even all that funny. I’d tell you all about it, but it was full of stories that end in “…well, I guess you had to be there”.
Thinking back on it, pound for pound, my Surgery rotation was more interesting. I pulled a kid’s spleen out in my hands (seen the heart scene from Indy & the Temple Of Doom? It was like that). I sewed an arm back together that was severed in two. I saw a surgeon tell a patient he would “drag your ass behind my truck with a goddam tow-rope until you run long enough to lose that weight†”.
But honestly, they don’t have time to be fun. They can’t sit around and digest their experiences. Surgeons are go-go-go, and while that’s exhilarating for a 6 week rotation, I think it’d get old after a while. What’s the point of having an amazing job if you can’t ever think, talk, or blog about it?
Listen, not that I’m hating on surgery. I loved surgery. But in hindsight, I’m glad it’s over. I had fun today. I’ve still got stories and stories and stories (one dude got a little too friendly with his floor-mount dildo††) – but this time around I can really talk about them. And laugh harder than I have in months.
† Yeah, actually, that guy was just a total dick.
†† How does that relate to Neurology, you ask? Stay tuned, says I!
I just wanted to say hi and that I love your blog. It has kept me entertained for hours. I’m starting my third year at college and hoping to go to medical school. I take my MCAT in January and your blog has made me want to work harder and go to med school even more. Keep it up. It’s wonderful :)
I stumbled upon you’re little blog here and really enjoy it. It’s honest, funny and well written. You have a nice piece of work here.
As a fellow medical student, I’m appalled at your lack of professionalism. I was told that your blog was a good read so I finally came around to reading it. I have not made it past the second entry where you wrote that you were “disgusted by him, I’m not even sure we did the right thing by “treating†him. I’m pretty good at keeping my professional game face on, but I wanted to pull him aside and tell him that frankly, I would write him off as a lost cause. ”
Your “professional game face”…are you kidding me? Professionalism is an aspect of being a doctor. I really hope that your attitude changes if you ever want to become respected. I’m actually disgusted that you care so little. Please, for the sake of your future patients, learn some respect.
I think you are missing quite a bit here Tiffany.
1. This is his personal blog. It is not part of his job, or his professionalism. It is something that he does because he enjoys it. It is similar to a diary/journal, and as such does not follow the standards he uses at his job.
2. It appears to me that he cares a lot, not that he cares too little. The whole point of the post is that Zac disagrees with the treatment being done, not that he doesn’t want to help people. If he “cared so little” then he wouldn’t care that an ineffective treatment was being given. He wouldn’t care that the man will probably die without a serious effort to get his weight in check.
Being professional is a very important part of being a doctor, but so is being honest.
Professionalism isn’t something that’s injected into medical students once they walk into a hospital for the first time, it must be cultivated. When you’re on your own time you have to say what you feel and what you would have said if the patient was your own.
It strikes me that professionalism involves being honest with your patients about what it truly causing their problems. (This, by the way, is how you earn the respect of your patients and peers; not by smiling vacantly, acquiescing and lying.)
And as a side note, you learn more about someone and what they have to say if you read their blog right: oldest to newest entry; this would be a better way to hear the author’s voice before you admonish them and cast them aside.
Tiffany, respect is not equivalent to appreciation. You can feign appreciation; respectful treatment is everything you put out on the table for people to see. Even respect out of obligation is not feigned respect because it is respect. However, its meaning is distorted. Unfortunate, but not disrespectful.
I’m confident that Zac treats his patients with respect. To be blunt, Zac must do so obligatorily in his field, but I also faith he does so out of heart.