Tribute

Change your thoughts, and you change the world.

- Norman Vincent Peale

I'm stealing a page out of my friend Dave's book, and creating a post just listing a positive thing in my day. So, Dasro, this post is dedicated to you.

Today, I performed a simple act - simple, but very significant. One of those significant events that just seemed a long way off, and seemed so improbable, that focusing on it daily would have been painful and counterproductive. Yet having it in the back of my mind was reason enough to get out of bed and into lab every morning. Friends, I'm speaking of finally turning in that letter of intent that I wrote several days ago to our beloved Registrar.

The Peale quote above certainly applies here. Armed with the knowledge that I'll soon be learning medicine in the clinic, my thoughts have been more positive, and my demeanor has been energized with hopeful energy.

So, to summarize - good thing for the day: Another Step Towards Moving On.

Update: Good thing of the day #2 - IT'S A GOOD-THING-OF-THE-DAY ORGY!!!

I just entered my preferred schedule of third year clinical clerkships. This is kind of an important issue as it has been almost five years since I really studied anything remotely related to medicine. MD/PhD students have to consider this fact when we consider the third year schedule - we'll be compared with the regular MD students who will have this information much more fresh in their minds. I solicited advice from three people (special thanks to Kris, Becca, and Dave) and got so much helpful information. Kris and Becca gave me the scoops on where the best clerkships would be, while Dave gave me some more empirical advice on scheduling. Basically, Dave thinks I should do my harder rotations when I have more energy and my easier rotations when I tend to feel burnt out. Sooooooo....my ideal schedule would be:

1. Surgery, 10½ weeks - this would be July through September; a tough rotation, but might give me the best chance to compete with my peers as we're all equally in the dark about anatomy at this point. Although this is my chance to make Daddy proud. I can't mess up this one. Oh, good. More pressure.
   
2. Internal Medicine, 11 weeks - October up to Christmas; this will be really tough, as the critical 2nd year course 'Biology of Disease' will have been five years ago in my past
   
3. Family Medicine, 6 weeks - End of December through January; my biorhythms are lowest in the winter months - this will be my first 'easier' rotation
4. Pediatrics, 6 weeks - February through March; well, I like working with newborns and young kids...can I stand dealing with the teens?
   
5. Psychiatry, 6 weeks - April to mid-May; "I'm not only a student, I'm also a client."
   
6. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 6 weeks - mid-May through June; hopefully I'll be full of pep for this one, another intense clerkship

I have to admit that I didn't think too hard about this scheduling stuff. There's no data that shows that the order of our rotations really matters in our performance. Plus, hoping for this schedule is wishful thinking. There will be 165 medical students doing third year clerkships, and they have to divide the class up to fit everybody into limited clinical space. So this scheduling thing basically turns into a lottery. With my luck, I'll get choice #165 and have the 'nightmare schedule.' However, due to the fact that I've spent so little time really worrying about it, I recognize no nightmare schedule. HOORAY FOR IGNORANCE! Anyway, I could get a bad schedule, and I'll still laugh out loud because I know I WON'T BE IN LAB.

To summarize - good thing for the day #2: I put in for my third-year clerkship schedule. I'm on my way!