My specialty

So, I've decided what I'm going to do with my life: I want to be an orthopedic surgeon.  It's funny to put it out there like that, especially because you spend so much time in med school trying to obfuscate your preferences.  All through 3rd year, within 5 minutes of meeting you, the residents and attendings on every rotation ask you, "So, what specialty are you thinking?" and all thru 3rd year, the correct answer is "Oh, I'm still deciding/not really sure/still ruling things out," thereby implying that their specialty is still in the runnings.

It's kind of silly, and you might say, why not just tell them what you actually want to do?  Well, unfortunately it doesn't really work that way in my experience, because as soon as they find out that you are not going into their specialty, the relationship changes.  Which is actually reasonable: if I'm on psych and they know I'm not going into psych, it would be... less fun for them to invest a lot of effort in me. I think that ultimately, mentors hope that you will want to follow in their footsteps.  If you explicitly don't plan to follow in their footsteps, you'll find that its suddenly much harder to get a mentor on a given rotation.  I know that sounds kind of cynical, but I've seen it happen, it's happened to me, and honestly, it makes sense.  And it's not the end of the world either, but in 3rd year, you find yourself fighting to learn, fighting to find good mentors.  And by telling a physician that you don't want to do what they do, you make your fight that much harder.

But enough on that, I'm putting it out there - I want to be an orthopod!

And in other news, I've been listening to SO much good music this year!  Spotify is a huge, huge part of my life - I think my priorities are 1) breathing, 2) spotify 3) food, peeing, other basic life functions. Anyway, if you are a fan of good things, this band, Periphery, is amazing - prog metal at its best!!

Aright, this feels good!  If my Netflix habit suffers a little to get this blog going again, so be it.

Flash Forward 3 Years

Recently it has come to my attention that this blog is still a thing.  My last entry was in 2012, which, holy shit that was a long time ago.  In October of 2012 I was... let's see. ..

In October 2012 I guess I was...  wow, I was early in my 1st year of med school.  Is that right?  Man, time flies.  First year is a crazy blur of books, quizzes, exams, cadavers, and learning so much.  Learning science, learning to wear the white coat, learning how not to hurt too many people too much of the time. Wow, learning anatomy and physiology, learning how to use a scalpel, a retractor, a stethoscope, a reflex hammer haha.

Then I suppose in September 2013, I was a second year, learning that I knew nothing about anatomy, physiology, or using a scalpel.  At the end of second year in June 2014 I took Step 1 of the boards, which is a whole other thing...

Then in July 2013, I started 3rd year of med school, which feels like where my education really began.  Man, I'll have to start sharing these stories again...

Today I am half way thru my 3rd year of med school; I'm on my psychiatry rotation, which explains why I have time to write this blog again!  I was reading through all my old posts from when I was trying to get into med school, and it's actually really nice to have a record of how I was feeling and what I was thinking.

So, I'm starting up again, Part 2: Return of the Blog.  And since it's been so long, so much has changed, I decided to change my name to Lucky Jack.  I'm sure I'll take the time to explain the name change soon, but in short, the person I was when I wrote all these previous posts is so different from who I am today.  Axl Rose, goodbye dear friend.

Besides writing this blog for my own edification, the other reason is because I love interacting with other people in their own journeys.  I encourage you to share your own journeys with me, through comments, emails, angry responses, questions, whatever.

Please feel free to contact me at luckyjackmed@gmail.com

Your Friend,

Lucky Jack

 

Back from the other side

Hey you guys, you guys, guess what?  Amazing news!  Stop the presses, extree extree!

Turns out, med school is a lot of work...

Yeah.  Like, a whole buttload of work.  I just wanted to let all y'all know that the news of this blog's demise have been greatly exaggerated, and that I am still going strong(ish).  I have finals in a couple of weeks, and yeah, the pace of school has been ridonkulous, but I'm still here, they haven't kicked me out, so, life is good.  I've been getting involved in extracurriculars, grabbing a couple leadership positions, but mostly focusing on passing my classes.

Stay tuned medlings.  There is much to tell, many stories to recount, and an plethora of fresh horrors to describe!

Your Friend,

Axl

...gulp...gulp...gulp...gulp...BREATH

Ho

Lee

Crap

So classes haven't even started yet - it's just orientation, and already I am reeling.  It's madness. Where do I even begin...

OK so yesterday, here is an account of my lunch:

I sprinted home, made some pasta, then ate, pooped, and wrote emails virtually at the same time.  I didn't have time to finish my lunch (poop took priority), and then I bolted back to school.

And HERE is a lovely account of my dinner:

I drove home, changed my clothes, ran in to the kitchen and literally just stuffed as many cold tortellinis in my mouth as I could, and ran out the door.  By the time I had chewed and swallowed my dinner, I was half-way back to school.

Yeah.  This shit is crazy!  This is literally, literally, the first consecutive hour in a row that I have had to "relax".  For your reading pleasure, the following is an account of the highlights of med school orientation so far:

1) My class is severely alcoholic.  Now don't get me wrong, I am a partaker, and I HAVE had times in my life where I was partying harder, but only marginally.  If at all.  Every single night so far, there has been a blinding bacchanalian bender at the graduate housing.  Like, total madness.  I have slept no more than 5 hours a night since last saturday night.  And I'm not even getting blind drunk cause I have to drive home, but it's just crazy good times!

2) Med school emails.  Are you serious right now?  My inbox is just groaning under the weight of the med school emails.  I am seriously getting 3-4 an hour all day.  And all of them have important shit in them.  So I actually have to read them.  And do I look like I can read?  C'MON!

3) Team building exercises.  I have never done these before, but we were out on a ropes course in small groups, and I gotta say, it was super sweet.  My team and I totally sucked - we didn't get over the wall, we didn't make it across the rope swing, but we had a blast not winning.  We were definitely the best, most awesome team at not winning.  But in all seriousness, I think I got really lucky with my group - no weirdos, no chodes, no d-bags.  Pretty awesome.

4) Med school is going to be hard.  Like, actually, seriously hard.  Like, I-accidentally-mainlined-40-cc's-of-cialis hard.   There is going to be just... so much material... so much.

5) Med students are, for the most part, a cool bunch.  Scientists, but not nerds.  All types really.  My class has a ridiculous variety of people in it, and everybody is brillianter than me, but that's fine, I can shred circles around them haha!

OK- that's all for now.  I have a couple of precious hours to get my life in order.  I have been totally ignoring my laundry, my dishes, my cat, my hygiene, and pretty much everything else.

Wow dude.  Here we go.  Liftoff.

Holy shit, here we go!

Holy shit, here we go!  Med school starts tomorrow!

\m/etal

Oh man, I love metal... it's never going to become my primary function in life (I think it may finally be time to acknowledge that), but damn!  Love it!  This is another FL band that, as far as I understand, recently disbanded.  Boo.  They are Written in Blood, and you are listen to it on Spotify.  So good.  Not signed, not nothing.  It's so reassuring to see that a band THIS good couldn't make it - it means I never had a chance haha!

I listened to this album, and I was just like:

Never Ever Forget This Day

Today is Wednesday, July 11th, 2012.  Today is 1,884 days from the day I graduated college, 1,464 days from the first time I took the MCAT, 459 days from the second time I took the MCAT, 531 days from the day I started writing this blog, 25 days before I start at an Ivy League med school, and 0 days from the last time that I couldn't pay my rent and had to ask my girlfriend to spot me $400.  I'm never going to forget the way this feels. 


Today is payday at The Filthy Gunslinger.  I got my paycheck, went home, paid my bills, and realized that I don't have enough money for rent.  So I went out and bought ramen.  That's lunch and dinner for the next week.  If I eat breakfast, it will be a muffin or scone that I swipe from the bakery display at work.  My car will be out of gas by Saturday, so I'll walk the 2 miles to work next Sunday thru Wednesday.  Am I embarrassed?  Yeah, but it's exactly this kind of shit that kicked me in the ass 1,593 days ago and put me on the path to a career that will put food on the table and make me feel like I am actually doing something that matters with my life.  My woman won't think less of me, and I won't starve in the next 7 days.  This bullshit will pass, and this is the last time that I won't be able to pay my rent.  

It's the days like this that will drive me to kick med school right in the taint.  I am going to dominate med school to the best of my ability because I never want to feel like this again.  Fuck being poor.