"Statement as of 2:49 AM EST on December 05, 2007
... Snow Advisory now in effect from 8 am this morning to 8 PM EST
this evening...

Low pressure over the Midwest early this morning will move south
of the mid Atlantic this afternoon and evening. Light snow is
expected to develop across the area between 8 am and 10 am. The
snow may intensify for a period during the afternoon... before
ending this evening. 1 to 2 inches of snow is expected... except
perhaps locally higher amounts across central Virginia near the
Charlottesville area.

A Snow Advisory means that periods of snow will cause primarily
travel difficulties. Be prepared for snow covered roads and
limited visibilities... and use caution while driving."

Schools are on delay and could cancel classes. People are ffrrrrrreaking out over 1-2 inches of snow. Stock up on your essentials; we're going into the bombshelter until this whole thing blows over.

Thanksgiving in Iowa

This Thanksgiving, Katie and I visited her brother's family...in Iowa. Since he is a pastor out in the boonies, he can't leave his church during all the significant holidays, when I have time off school, so this was the first chance we had to meet. It was fantastic. We ate, sat around, watched football, and shopped from 12 midnight to 1:30 am on "Friday morning" (late Thursday night). But the most fun was playing with Evelyn (older) and Anna (younger), Katie's nieces. Hilarious pictures ensue:

The costumes were a "Christmas present" from Aunt Gretchen (Katie's sister). Katie shot 178 photos while they yelled "cheese", occasionally got fussy, and pulled on their antennae. It was chaos...but it paid off.


Anna taking a walk in my shoes:

Evelyn and Katie reading a book:

Danny (Katie's brother) and I wanted to try out the costumes. For the sake of sensitive stomachs, I am omitting the picture of Danny in the full get-up*. The costume didn't survive...


Thanksgiving was a great chance to be normal for a second; to be a way from the feeling that I really should be studying instead of _______. Now that I'm back, I realize the difference between school-time and break-time. I can get through the next four weeks, but I really can't wait for Christmas!

*For the record, that photo doesn't physically exist. Yet the image haunts you still! mwahahaha!

Fun at Language School!

Horseback Riding!













Holding Parrots!














Culturally sensitive, sustainable micro-enterprise!












Getting sacrificed!

A history book made of stairs!

















The temple I was sacrificed on!
















Katie can make rocks smile!

Dancing Jaguars! (its really a carving of a dancing jaguar)

The Kids

The easiest people to connect to are naturally the kids. We liked photographing, they liked posing then checking the camera to see how it turned out. For those who are confused, yes 98% of the Honduran population is mestizo. We did a service project on the North Coast though, and met alot of African descent Hondurans (Garifuna). It happened to be my favorite place, so there are more photos from there.

The People We Worked With

There once was a group of American students who wanted to see what being a missionary was like (see left). Katie and Callie were the leaders (black and yellow shirts next to each other).









There once was another group of Latin American students who were learning how to be pastors and missionaries (see left). The Latin American and American groups got sent out to very interesting and unusual places together. They had to learn alot about their teammates' very different cultures.

This is Matt, my friend from the American group.
















This is part of the family we stayed with when we were in language school. Katie, Callie, Matt and i went to language school together.












Katie, Callie, and one of the missionaries' daughters. She was adorable, and liked building dams in the river with me.

Honduras Pictures: Pretty Pics

First, these are some pictures for setting.



Canchias: the compound where we stayed most of the time











Mountains near Canchias

Copan Ruinas: tourist town where we went to language school

Copan: see the little moto-taxi? They're about 4ft tall. I had to constantly fight the temptation to just push one over
















The North Coast: for one reason or another we ended up on the coast a few times. This time it was for fun on the beach!

The Comedians reborn

This is a post I started in Honduras, but didn't have the internet connectivity to finish:

The Comedians, Graham Greene (1966)


The moment I walked in I was transported to another time and place, another life all together. I had walked out of a land of poverty, desperation, and chaos. I world of a different culture and language.

The restaurant was dim and candlelit, with a couple raucous Americans who, in my judgment, were a little too old to be drinking as much as they were. They had worn faces, deep smiles, and rosey noses. I felt a tension - unspoken but palpable, like someone is going to burst out with it at any moment - between the bar and the door to the outside...

Two worlds: the dirty, dusty, poor reality of present-day Honduras just beyond the threshold. Inside, an overly friendly college girl from the South - her dad owns the big house across the valley ... the only one you can see from here - and her dad's friend who's job is to look after her. He's a writer of novels, a thirsty one at that, but seems to find talking about his latest work to be less interesting than the lady next to him. His charge is overly interested in what we're doing in Honduras and whatever my friend is talking to her at the present.

There is not much more to the story beyond setting the scene. It is more of a portrait than a storyline. But it still strikes me how hard the place was trying to be American, and yet how out of place I felt when I was there.

News from the Mayan Ruins

Day 14: I hacked my way through dense forest to barter beads and bits of string with the savages in return for high-speed internet access. Four young boys ride stationary bicycles to power my laptop and accompanying wireless router.

Okay, its not like that at all. In fact, I am way too spoiled right now. To review the last few weeks: I first arrived June 17th, and during the following week I worked with a group of ~20 of Katie's church friends. We built three small homes for widows and especially needy families in a village about an hour away from where we are staying. For those of you following along with google world, it is nearby Lake Yojoa, the largest lake in Honduras.

The compound where we stay is quite rural. The nearest internet or telephone is at least 30 minutes away by car. Since our group is transported to and from the compound by cattle truck (its everything you imagine), for group members connection to the United States is nonexistent. The Honduran staff generally live in San Isidro (the nearest town, with internet) and have cell phones, so the disconnection is more of an intentional thing...like summer camp. That being said, it is a good thing.

So the first week was building houses, getting to know the Heart to Honduras staff, and trying to get my project off the ground - I got three interviews done, which is fantastic! At the end of the first week, the team returned to Ohio and left the Group of Four: my Katie, two other 20-somethings, and me. The four of us will be in Honduras for the rest of the summer, and our first order of business was to improve our Spanish - we left for language school in Copan Ruinas last Sunday.

this is where I get to the "spoiled" I live with one of the more upper class families in the town, and attend language school for four hours a day. While internet used to cost about $1/hour at the nearby internet cafe, I found out two days ago that my host family actually has a wireless router, which the father gladly hooked up (I don't speak enough spanish to understand why it wasn't hooke dup to begin with) leaving me with constant access to high speed internet...I am like a binging heroin addict fresh out of a week of rehab. I know I only have my drug for five more days before I have to go back underground for about 4 weeks. Just one more email before I quit...

One Liner

The reason you can't tell bleu cheese has gone bad is that it already has.

Headed South for the Summer...No, farther south

Observe to the right: a country I have never seen the inside of...yet. Honduras is a small Central American country with...people...and health needs...and other things.

That's about the extent of my expertise. But I want to know MORE, so I'm headed to Honduras for the summer - as our prof's have been reminding us, the last summer break we'll ever have...ever. Its like they want us to act out and "live" one last time before we're forced into the shackles of labor and debt for the rest of our lives. Cheery bunch.

"I'm going to Honduras" makes it sound like I woke up today and decided to spend six in a half weeks in the most rural part of a faraway culture I could find. In fact, I have had to fight long and hard to get people to let me, and in some cases give me money to, haul off to Honduras for the summer. I am doing a research project for my University and for an NGO that does short-term medical mission trips (among a host of other things) in Honduras. The study is simple in design - ask people about the health of four nearby villages, then talk to people about how the NGO and other health providers can improve their situation.

That being said, I have been leg-working, glad-handing, and application/protocol/grant-writing myself stupid to get from idea to reality.* You know, the hardest thing is to have any credibility whatsoever when the people you're working with are mentally comparing me with their college-age son. I'm twenty four (though I do in fact look fifteen), so when am I allowed to come and talk at the "adults table"?

So, all venting aside things are moving. Wheels are turning. I'm set to leave on June 17th, and I've got a bunch left to do, but it seems like I might just be able to still pull off four meetings -two of which are 6 hours away - move out of my house, oh and of course pass some pesky second year medicine exams (yikes!). This thing can happen!

More to come.


*Shout out to my Katie: Without her, I would never have gotten even halfway to Honduras. She makes my dreams a reality....<>

Maybe our Blogs Acutally Mean Something

My family, mostly on my mom's side, likes to take photographs. Lots of photographs. So many that I find many memories of my childhood are shaped and influenced more by the photos than by the true memories,
i.e. "camping" every summer at the cabins at Mohican: I can independently "picture" only two memories from our yearly visits there, but I can remember scores of pictures taken of the family floating in inner-tubes down the river, us kids playing in the tubes on land, and our then goofy looking parents talking, resting on hammocks...usual summer stuff.
So much of our family's history is told by photographs and the stories told while pouring over the photographs together.

This year Katie and I visited my extended family for Easter. In addition to the standard food, lounging, and discussion, there were photo albums and stories (mostly of an awkward childhood Mark). The most meaningful moment that night was when we went through an old scrapbook - long before my time - of my grandparents' marriage and honeymoon. They were younger than Katie and me (!), but getting married at that age was fairly common in early Colonial times (sorry Grandpa/ma, I just couldn't resist). We found a letter my Grandma wrote to her friend detailing their honeymoon - a roadtrip to New York State.

There are a few perfect moments in your life that can never be planned or re-created, and often we only understand after the fact. This was one of only a handful I've ever had.

Katie was reading the letter out loud for my cousin and me who were looking at other albums, scouting out more embarrassing childhood photos of each other. Gradually all of the conversations around us quieted, and faded out. Katie was now telling the story of our family's genesis to our whole family. As she read, we lived vicariously through the first of our grandparents' many travels. We drank in every detail as two fresh young newlyweds - barely grown farm-kids - got soaked on the maid of the mist, got lost in the foreign countryside of New York, navigated through terrifying traffic in NYC, and even got in an accident delaying them in Pittsburgh. Out of that letter came a side of my grandparents I had never seen before that moment. I learned alot about them, and grew to love them even more as I imagined them as newlyweds, young adults, my peers.

It was such a powerful moment that I got to thinking about family history in general. My siblings and I all keep blogs. Steve and Lara write about the trials and joys of bringing two beautiful children into the world. Rachel and Andrew are living their lifelong dream of biking up the West Coast and across the U.S. together, living out of a pup tent. I'm writing stories late at night just to keep myself from going crazy studying. Right now, we're writing to our family and friends, and to deal with the everyday. But maybe these blogs will become more. Maybe these blogs will be to our kids/grandkids what photo albums and old letters were to me. Someday 60 years from now, a family yet unborn might hush and listen together as someone reads my history back to me, learning about a Grandpa Mark they'd never known before.


Hopefully they'll skip my rant about cinnamon.

Esophageal Cancer

The phrase immediately makes me uneasy, as my thoughts gravitate to my first "patient", Mrs. B.

I was a ball of nerves, as I always am before doing something for the first time. But when I walked in I had gathered myself and I was all smiles. Other than some ugly tubes coming out of her neck, she was a calming presence. White hair slightly matted by days in a hospital bed, skin worn by hard work and a nasty cigarette habit, she looked frail. But she came alive when she saw me, the power of her spirit seemingly transforming her. We hit it off immediately, and talked like old friends about what had brought her to the hospital, and all the details of her harrowing past year.

It started with trouble swallowing. Food and eventually some liquids would just "stick" in her throat, and she wouldn't be able to swallow them. It started gradually, but after a couple weeks she knew this was no fluke. Something was seriously wrong.

The rest of the year was test after test, and liquid nutrition drinks - the only thing keeping her from wasting away - then the treatment (radiation+chemo). At first it wasn't too bad, but her long course of treatment quickly drained what little life she was pulling out of her Ensure cans. During the interview she made it clear she never wanted to go through that again. One more test. The tumor is still there, but smaller....a good sign.

Fours days after a complicated surgery and recovery, she was feeling great, swallowing most liquids and preparing to leave. i was smiling too. My first patient, an affable lady with a coherent story of her illness (most patients benefit from a little guidance I am learning), was a cancer survivor. How wonderful!

I proudly presented my ideal first patient - my success story - to the group. The attending gently but pointedly asked the group what we knew about esophageal cancer (nothing).

As I researched her illness that night, pride gave way to the icy truth. Esophageal cancer progresses especially quickly and silently, easily passing into nearby tissues and taking up residence in distant lymph nodes - gathering strength off the oblivious patient. By the time symptoms arise, most esophageal cancers have progressed substantially, resulting in an overall 5-year survival rate of only 10% - nine out of ten patients die within five years, treated or no.

Mrs. B was dying in front of my eyes, passing from living breathing companion to a ghost. My research for the following session became a form of grieving...figuring out what could be done, and what her chances really were. I was fighting - if only metaphorically - for a breakthrough to "save" her.

True, all of this was mental exercise, dealing with the newfound possibility of patients dying. I was supposed to be practicing the medical interview. I have years until I actually provide medical care to anyone. But it became real when I learned her story and took on her struggle.

I still think of her sometimes when I'm trying to sleep...never certain of whether I am recalling a survival story or a eulogy.

On the Horizon: MicroPractices

The good Doctor (Charles) says it best.....Click me!

The idea is that doctors use technology and unique business models to keep their costs super-low. This allows them to see fewer people per days -----thus see people for longer than, say, 10 minutes per visit.

A round of emails passed through the med school a couple months ago. Its very interesting stuff for most docs who - just like their patients - are really frustrated with the current doctor-patient relationship.

An article in USAToday...
and one in the Wall Street Journal (via DrCharles)....

This is something that makes me excited about medicine in my time. Yeah, yeah healthcare is broken and it'll only be worse in "my day". But unique and innovative approaches are going to turn medicine on its face, and maybe even "fix" healthcare in the process.

Playing Doctor

I gotta tell ya, I looked the part: dress clothes - no tie for hygiene and a little for rebellion (my dad understands); and white coat - pockets filled with instruments, reflex hammer, tuning forks, and whatever other crap might make me look legit.

Now I had to play the part: this was my first "solo flight" into a complete medical history and physical exam. We've been doing histories for months now, and I feel pretty comfortable with asking open-ended questions, letting the patient tell their story until they stop or their story starts "swerving around", asking some follow-ups or retelling the story as I know it, and being generally charming - side note: old people coincidentally LOVE me.

But today I have to poke, drum on, listen to, and occasionally whack (CVA tenderness) someone in just the right way, step back and look thoughtful, then do it some more. And further, my first time is on a fourth year med student, assigned to (quite convincingly) play a guy who has knee pain. He knows when I don't know what I'm doing.

"Where's it hurt, when, how bad, whens it worse or better, and who are you having sex with?" Of course that's not the exact progression! But it turns out, that last question was key...the kid had the Clap! (gonorrhea). For good form I did every exam there was - its supposed to be a learning exercise for me - but I saved the best for last, yanking back and forth on his knee while he winced and sighed. This guys was good at making me feel like a monster for hurting him, but that's part of the MD stamp I guess.

It was all completely pretend, and at times we'd break role and talk about techniques etc, but for about an hour it felt quite real. I felt both knowledgeable and like a complete fraud simultaneously. Afterwards I was completely drained. How am I going to do this every day, all the time?

The more I reflect on the experiences related to my professional development class (learning histories and physicals), the more I feel exactly the opposite from the above paragraph though. Only months ago, I was completely oblivious to the intricate art of Doctoring....how exacting the interaction is, extracting clues from the words a patient uses to describe their symptoms, and the subtle signs their bodies give up to betray the disease within. I feel like Encyclopedia Brown, my childhood hero.

I had a talk with a family doc at my church about the actual use of history and physical exam in diagnosing disease in these days of billions of lab tests and imaging techniques (ie x-rays, CT, MRI). While "seeing" the problem physically (imaging) or chemically (labs) appeals in its simplicity and covering your @$ from getting sued, what is truly gained other than a much larger doctor's bill?....seriously, that stuff is pricey.

Maybe talking to your doctor and having him drum on your liver is old-fashioned. Now are the days of full-body MRI's and Comprehensive Metabolic Panels.

The Long Version

Through one of the blogs I stalk, er I mean monitor I found Eschara, a website dedicated to scars and the stories they tell. I have been aching to tell my scar-story ever since. I submitted a contribution, but the 100 word limit for Eschara just wasn't enough to tell the story properly, so here's the long version:

I was an overcurious six year old. I had explored the chicken house many times before, so my grandpa allowed me out of his sight while he collected eggs.

I don't remember much of the incident, or what compelled me to stick my hand in between the gears of that auger, but I remember the cold terror of realizing I was in real trouble. He ran as fast as he could when I screamed, but the machine was closing in on my wrist before he could shut it off.

Tears come to my eyes just trying to imagine the horror he swallowed as he worked my mangled hand back through the auger, replaying the injury in reverse. The surgeons said I would have lost my hand if it had gone 2cm further. Instead, my hand is fully functional. My grandpa saved my hand, but I don't think he ever forgave himself for not watching me closer.

I started 1st grade markedly different from everyone around me. Everyone wanted to see what had overtaken my hand, but - like most 1st graders – they were unable to politely mask their horror when they saw what was left. I sometimes felt like the Phantom of the Opera, sometimes hiding my deformity, other times defiantly thrusting it forward, daring you to be disgusted by it.

When meeting new people, I always silently wonder how long it will be until I hear the familiar “Whoa, what happened to your hand?” and I launch into my well-rehearsed description of what happened. Most people tend to glaze over after “childhood farm accident”. So sometimes I lie first, and tell a story about feeding alligators in the Everglades – I always add the detail that alligators love marshmallows, and that seems to convince people I’m telling the truth. I then tell them the real story, but rarely the whole story.

My hand tells a story of a childhood wrought with injury and recklessness, but also of self-consciousness. My scar is smaller and faded now, and perhaps someday it will be barely visible. Although I will never look at it as a thing of beauty, the idea of losing it makes me strangely sad. I always hoped that somehow it might bring me closer to patients who struggle with their own deformity – making me a better doctor. Then again, maybe it will just scare children.

The Week Before Exams

I’m in the library like everyone else. It's not unlike spending 12 hour days in a sensory deprivation chamber shoulder to shoulder with 140 other people. You can hear a fart 30 feet away, but since you’ve been looking straight down for the last 4 hours your eyes can’t focus* enough to give you the pleasure of identifying the culprit.

I have “study friends” with whom I exchange nods and smiles, but we haven’t uttered a single word to each other all week. Another 1^st year pointed to a picture of my niece on my computer and asked if it was my daughter. I honestly had trouble forming a response – I hadn’t spoken a word in hours, and I was kind of startled by suddenly being thrust into conversation – but I managed to stammer out the word “niece”. I’m not sure I’m ready for the “talking to each other” stage with these guys yet.

Just about any stimulus is enough to drive me nuts**. On a related note, I believe the following should be banned from libraries:

1) Apples – by far the most obnoxious food in the world. *bite*rip*chew*slurp* repeat and I’m already climbing the walls. It’s impossible to eat them quietly, so just don’t bring them!

2) Paper, plastic, or potato chip bags – Are you serious?!

3) Colds – Got the sniffles? Stay home. I spent so much time mentally playing out strategies (some kind, some violent) of getting the girl next to me to blow her nose and shut up, I just had to get up and leave.

That brings me to library real estate. I brought a coat today, not because its cold outside, but so I could hold “dibs” on my sweet table (!). Little did I know, my neighbor brought her pet virus but neglected to bring her tissues *sniff*-pause-*sniff*sniff*-longer pause-*sniff*.

I did a lap around the library looking for hidden nooks to in which to cloister, but it’s evening and this place is packed. The only things left are the carrels, or more appropriately, the study stables. You get about 2 square feet of desk-space bordered on three sides by dividers; if you’re lucky, you get a little fluorescent light and a working outlet!

It’s the day before exams. I have another five days of this nonsense punctuated occasionally by 3-hour exams. I’m praying for stamina and sanity.

*Since “eye focusing” is on tomorrow’s exam, immediately after writing this I had to mentally recount its pathway through the brain and mechanism in the eye. Super-nerd.

**Example: the sound of my typing is enough to piss people off, so out of guilt I moved to the “loud part” of the library near the circulation desk where the employees chat at full volume about their weekend plans.

***First “cloister” usage ever. I feel like a monk just saying it.

Listen

Mr. A sat in the exam room holding a grimy fistful of papers about ticks, tick bites, and the multitude of horrific things that can result from them. I caught the letterhead of S.T.O.P. (Stop Ticks On People, I kid you not) and tried hard not to laugh as I pictured S.T.O.P. rallies and protests in Washington (Hey-Ho! Ticks gotta go!)

Dr. Good* – “So, what brings you in today, Mr. A?”

Mr. A – “Well I just haven’t been feeling right since these bitesYou** see there are five different types of ticks. Many people only know about the deer tick and the dog tick, but…”

Like a seasoned politician, Mr. A moved flawlessly from his answer to his speech, in this case a dissertation about all things tick-bite. I settled in, expecting that once he got this speech off his chest, Dr. Good would resume the detective work. But Dr. Good had other plans.

Before Mr. A could get to the comma after “dog tick” Dr. Good was peppering him with questions. Where are the bites? Do you have a rash? When did they happen? I don’t see the rash. Tell me about this fever. Where are the bites? Did you see the ticks? Do you have a rash? Tell me about this fever. Where are the bites?

Dr. Good had decided that he was in charge of this interview, and he was beginning to flex his will power. This specifically entailed interrupting Mr. A’s every answer with a new question. Just as Mr. A would start to say “Well, there were some bites here, and maybe on my legs…” Dr. Good was studying his arm, already asking about a rash. Mr. A was still on bites when Dr. Good was asking about fever. Mr. A was doing a poor job of following the questions Dr. Good was firing off let alone answering them. It seemed Dr. Good wasn’t even following his own questions; he asked about the same things so often I had to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out Mr. A’s answers for him.

I was watching a skit on precisely how NOT to interview a patient. By Act 3, Mr. A had been “broken”. He submissively answered all of Dr. Good’s questions in as few words as possible, and Dr. Good whisked out of the room to record his victory under Progress Notes. As he shook my hand and thanked us both for all our help, Mr. A was visibly stunned by the whole event and looked unsure of what he had done wrong.

We’re continuously taught to let patients tell us their own stories about their illness, to listen carefully to them, and to pull the “facts” out as they arrive rather than forcing them out. Everything I know about Doctorin’ tells me that Dr. Good was a bad doc there. Dr. Good isn’t a bad doc though…well, at least he wasn’t at any other time. In fact, he was the perfect doc to everyone else we saw that day. The more interviews I witness, the more I see doctors shape-shift to match their patients, pulling out different personalities every 15 minutes. The stars apparently aligned against Mr. A that day, and he saw a very mean shaped doctor.

*Not his/her name. I decided to start creating characters for my stories. Mr. A will likely be followed by Mrs. B, etc. Dr. Good, Dr. Bad, and Dr. Ugly – maybe not Dr. Ugly, cuz that’s mean – will also come out to play.

**I’ve adopted the no-space sentence as a way of conveying a pause-less segue. Its much easier to communicate by voice than on paper. In this case, slam sentence 2 (You) into sentence 1(bites) by refusing to take a breath and pronouncing the two words as one…bitesYou

My Stories

I like to tell stories, but more importantly I like to tell stories while simultaneously not getting sued. That compulsion leads me to remind everyone that what I post is fiction. Not actual events.

Lies.

I make up names, I make up actual events, and on occasion I've made up diseases.

The stories I tell might bring up strong feelings of what was done wrong, or what should be done. I don't bring those issues up head-on, partially because I don't always think of them, and partially because I don't enjoy debating ethical issues on my blog. But sometimes, rarely, the story was written to make you feel that way - I manipulated your feelings with my dirty, lying stories - mostly because life never plays out as vividly black and white as you'd hope. So sometimes I "turn up the contrast" a little.

2nd grade Essay, and Then SuperRant!

We have these writing prompts for one of my classes. Some are good, some are "meh", and this one...well I felt like I was doing a book report for Mrs. Snyder's class all over again. So, what did I do? I got super-wordy and soapbox-y. In my mind, if I'm using two dollar words it feels less like elementary school. Oh my tangled logic...
__________

5. Describe someone who personifies the humanistic practice of medicine. Why?

Albert Schweitzer is a role model who personifies the humanistic practice of medicine. Dr. Schweitzer championed the phrase “Reverence for Life”, where he encouraged us to give as much reverence for every creature’s will to live as we give our own. Similar in practice to the “Golden Rule” of treating others as you wish to be treated, “Reverence for Life” pushes beyond mere practice and encourages us to love and revere every creature in the same way that instinct compels us to love and revere ourselves.

Through “Reverence for Life” we learn altruism, and are compelled to serve others selflessly. Dr. Schweitzer lived his philosophy out by leaving his comfortable life in Europe, establishing a hospital in rural Africa, and spending a majority of his remaining life serving as a healer and caregiver to the least fortunate in the world. As shown in his following quote, Dr. Schweitzer viewed service as central to happiness and well-being.

“I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found a way to serve.” – A. Schweitzer

_____________

Albert Schweitzer really is a role model of mine, and for that very philosophy of Reverence for Life. My heart really wasn't in conveying that to whoever grades these "Reflections" though. Partly because there's much more to that whole philosophy.

The pursuit of selflessness is, well, a really romantic and idealistic idea. When the chips fall, we are all just looking out for ourselves and our progeny, right? In that case, Reverence for Life is a farce, a pipe dream, a bedtime story...right?

Wrong. Okay Right for most, but Wrong for me. Yes it is romantic, yes it is idealistic, but the idea is a valid one. Dr. Schweitzer did it, and thousands followed. Heck, med schools - fortresses of cold hard science - are making service part of their curriculum. The demand for service based learning is growing rapidly, and its because of romantic, idealist...students. I'm young, I have no family to care for, and I still kind of believe I'm invincible: I have no need for self interest, because I have no one to protect yet.

The hard part will be in 10 years when I have a job, a family, a mortgage, and I'm still paying of that !@#$% med school debt! Where is Reverence for Life then? Perhaps I'll just have to pack up my family of five and move to Haiti for a few years ;)

PS I do not advocate moving one's family to the third world. It doesn't make sense for most, but I guess that's part of the appeal, isn't it?

Like a Post, but Not

http://scienceblogs.com/drcharles/2007/01/the_power_of_story.php

Storytelling in practice. Not the best example of Narrative Medicine, but I'm starting slow (read: I'm too lazy to post or find a more accurate example).

One Month Plus Passes...

I see that button on the toolbar - "blogger.com" - tens of times per day, whenever I open a webpage. I think to myself "I really need to get a post in soonHey look at that over there!", then I'm off on a new tangent.

I don't talk enough to my blog recently, because I tend only to turn to it when I'm socially needy (Why go outside and meet people when you can just write on the online?). The convergence of 1. winter break and 2. realizing that I really need to be more outgoing already has left behind a poor, lonely little blog. So do I choose healthy social behavior or digital journaling.....I choose both.

I mean...I kind of...well...I will choose both. You see, a big reason I'm even writing a post right now is that I'm lonely and I miss my Katie. I saw her this past weekend when I drove her to the airport so she could spend the week in Honduras. She is going on a short-term mission trip with her church, and is completely cut off from civilization...well, from me at least. We usually talk on the phone each night, recounting in minute detail the day we had (this is what I ate, this is where I went, and he said, and I said I just don't see why...etc). Sounds dull, but its not. Its all we have.

So, I'm here now because my girlfriend is in a third world country. But I want to change how I approach the blog. Maybe resolve to write once every weekend ... less about my week and all that, and more posts about medicine and school in general.

Here's the thought process: I like writing...kind of. I'm very fond of medicine. Last semester I did a project about "Narrative Medicine" a fanci-fied word for focusing on the Narratives we find in Medicine. Narratives include the stories of patients, the stories of doctors, and the stories of students (i.e. me). I have a writing platform...a "blog" as it were...why not venture into some narration.

Here's the admission of guilt: I have some writing assignments I have to do this semester for a medical humanities class. I'm kind of twobirdswithonestone-ing here in that I can fulfill the writing assignments and be a better blogger at the same time.

What, you've never heard the term twobirdswithonestone-ing???