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