Dreams

                   

It seems impossible. I can barely believe it, and I'm the one living it! I'm 10 days away from finishing my 2nd year of medical school. 

It seems like it was only yesterday, that I was living in Berlin, having a crisis about my future and talking with a good friend about the fact that the only thing I had really ever wanted to do was medicine, but the chance had passed me by. I was too old. I couldn't drop everything now and start over. 

Or could I? 

The phrase on the picture above is so obvious, but so hard to see sometimes. Medicine is a long term goal. It takes a lot of time and effort. You might have to give up other things, and you'll definitely have to make sacrifices in order to achieve it. But if it's what you really want, you owe it to yourself to go for it. Because if you don't, the time will pass anyway, and you might look back and realize that if you had started then, you'd have accomplished it now. 

So do it. Whatever your dream is, run to it. Be brave. The first step, the decision, is the hardest. After that, nothing can stop you. Nothing should stop you. 

The truth about Chad...

I have been hearing and reading blog posts about medical workers in Chad since 2006, when I met the doctor who had been leading the hospital I'm at until recently. He is now in Monrovia, Liberia-- the center of the ebola outbreak. But that's another story. 

My point is this: I was sort of prepared for how things were over here. Or so I thought... But really, nothing can convey the reality in an accurate way. 

Chad is without a doubt the most infuriating country I've ever been to (and we're at about 40 countries by now). They don't grasp the concept of honesty (we had to fire two nurses in one week because they were *stealing from the patients!!!*). They have no critical thinking, and do everything in the *one* way they were taught, without stopping to think that some things should be adapted to some situations. 

They are ashamed of the foley bags, so they hide them under the covers, and no matter how many times you tell them it needs to be lower than their bladders, it doesn't seem to matter. (I finally solved that problem with the brilliant idea of using pillow cases as pouches to tie to the bed and hide the foleys in!) 

However, here is the actual truth: I am loving it. It is infuriating, and it's really hard, and it's tragic sometimes, and not a day goes by without me wanting to cry at some point or another (I don't though.) 

But I get to scrub in on surgeries every day, and see the insides of people. I get to talk to patients and their families, explain procedures, battle infection and see progress, every day. I get to make a difference, even if it's in a small way, in the life and well-being of my patients. For example, remember my amputee lady? Her name is Irene. She was basically the only patient who always looked at me like I was evil, because I always do her dressing changes, which means I literally insert my entire index finger into her wound and wash it out with bleach, causing her inmeasurable pain. Her wound is healing nicely though, and I got rid of all the infection!! :) :) :) 

Well, yesterday afternoon, I came by and told her we were going to get her up and walking. AND SHE SMILED! I almost broke down... So sure enough, I get a walker and she stands up... in pain, a little light-headed, but she's vertical for the first time in 3 weeks!!! 

This is Irene, taking her first steps after losing her leg. I told her to look up and smile, and she actually did! 

We followed her with the wheel chair just in case she got tired, but yesterday she walked about 100 feet, and today she did 165 feet! 

I feel like I'm going around in circles, but what I wanted to say is this: don't think I'm a martyr, or that I'm amazing, or anything like that. I'm not. I have simply waited my whole life for this and being here, despite all the hardships, is actually a dream come true. I am here as much for myself as I am for them... 

...although I might rethink that next week, when ALL the westerners including Dr. Scott leave (there are 8 of us) and I stay here holding down the fort with only one Chadian doctor for help, guidance and company... I guess we'll see. 

Why medical school?

I guess this is the first question you might ask of someone when you hear they want to go to medical school. It's definitely on a lot of med school interviews (probably all!).

So here's the thing: I have always wanted to be a doctor. Since I was 3 years old and could barely formulate a full sentence, I already knew I wanted to be a doctor, and incredibly, that has never changed. I tried to put it aside, I pursued other interests, other careers, graduated from college, learned a few languages, lived all over Europe and the US, traveled all over the world. Nothing was good enough.

About 3 years ago I realized that nothing I did was going to be good enough, if it wasn't medicine. I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Of course, then came the questions:
Do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? Am I too old?

However, I am  going for it, and will be officially starting Medical School in March 2015, in Uruguay (my home country). I was supposed to start March 2014, but bureaucracy got in the way again.


So what are my reasons? Why do I want to go to med school? Why become a doctor and not anything else?

The normal answer is "because I want to help people". Yes,  I do want to help people. But that's not nearly all. I’m fascinated by it all. By the human body. By the fact that the large majority of people, if they take the slightest amount of care (i.e. don’t eat lard everyday and move around a bit instead of being a couch potato), don’t have many problems and live a reasonably healthy 60 or 70 years. Our bodies are incredibly good at keeping themselves healthy and regenerating.

Beyond that, I’m bored with most everything else. I’m not a math person… it’s not that I mind it particularly, but it’s not my thing. I want to do something meaningful, I don’t want to work just to get money, or fill the pockets of someone else. I want to do something that makes a real difference in the world TODAY. I like reading and writing and researching. I enjoy it for a time. Then I get bored. Does this make any real difference in anybody’s life? If I wasn’t sitting here correcting research papers, would it make a difference? would somebody live or die based on me going to work today? no. Nobody cares. There’s no purpose.

I guess what I want is for my life to count for something. I want to use whatever talents or knowledge I have to make a real difference in someone’s life *today.* Not tomorrow. Not in a general “I managed to pass a law that makes people pay less taxes.” No, I want something that I can see. That I can measure. Something concrete: they were in pain, now they’re not. They almost died, now they’re doing well. I need to know that I’m not just taking up space and oxygen in this world, but that my existence benefited humanity.

I guess that’s why I want to be a doctor.


This chart over at A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor hits it squarely on the head:

I cannot imagine doing anything else...