Mish-mash of mullings

For some reason, the untimely death of Heath Ledger disturbed me to the core. Perhaps it is because he is the epitome of the young, handsome Hollywood talent with so much potential who has very serious turmoil underneath the surface, or perhaps it is because there was something easy and familiar about him that made me feel like he was a friend. Death has been something I have taken a long time to grasp, and even though I've come closer to accepting certain truths, every now and then my foundation is tested.

While we're on a depressing subject, I'd just like to openly state that if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, I will cry. I will also henceforth refer to her campaign as "Billary" for self-evident reasons.

On a perkier note, I am just four months away from earning my medical degree! Truth be told, it feels a bit anticlimactic. This journey began for me when I was a wee lass just discovering the untold depths of science. There have been countless sacrifices, tests of mental and physical stamina, triumphs, failures, doubts (plenty of doubts), and seemingly insurmountable obstacles which I have survived. For it all to culminate in an afternoon of keynote speakers, sentimental presentations, and marching across a stage in a funny hat just seems so... unimpressive. I guess the real thrill will come the first time I can sign my name with my fresh new title :-)

In other news, I have created a sister blog, if you will, called Beauty/Truth that will feature product reviews, opinions, and experiences from years of perfecting my approach to skincare and makeup. Whether that sort of thing appeals to you or not, I hope you'll find something interesting among my posts!

Yes, I am alive

I've been meaning to post something, considering it's been over a month since my last post, but I never seemed to find the time to do it properly. And I would want to publish a proper post full of juicy news instead of a piddly little placeholder post. That last sentence was far more alliterative than I intended.

Anyway, I am back in Boston now, not doing any clinical rotations at the moment. It's nice to have so much downtime, somewhat reminiscent of the luxurious month-long winter breaks in college, and to be able to sleep in and engage in mindless activities. Lest you should be under the impression that I'm slacking off, I have undertaken the sizeable task of a major clean-up of my room at home. I realized that I had a lot of clothes, books, and random odds and ends collected over many years ever since I left for college, basically. And considering that I moved seven times in the four and a half years since graduating from high school, it's no surprise that a whole lot of junk had accumulated which I had no time to sift through. So, capitalizing on this rare event of having an extended amount of time entirely at my disposal, I decided to carpe diem. Thus, I generated several large bags of clothes and books to donate (just in time for the holidays! I'm such a good doobie), as well as many bags of pure garbage. The entire project is about 80% complete, the remainder consisting mainly of adequately storing my summer wardrobe and organizing my make-up and jewelry, the latter being a lot harder than it sounds when you're a make-up and jewelry junkie such as myself.

Now that I've bored you to tears with that, I can share more interesting updates which will remind you why you even bother reading this blog to begin with. The main focus of my life at the moment, besides the thrilling project described in excruciating detail above, is interviewing at residency programs. Foolishly, I was anticipating this ordeal as "fun," an opportunity to "travel," "meet people," and "visualize my future." I'm sure you can surmise from the exaggerated use of quotation marks that my naïveté was indeed just that. Not that it hasn't had its moments. It has been fun and informative to meet my future colleagues and to reaffirm why obstetrics-gynecology is the only specialty I can imagine pursuing. I am more glad than ever that I took a year off because I know I needed those extra 12 months to really feel ready to become a physician. It still freaks me out, but not to the point of wanting to run and hide in my mother's bed.

Those are the highlights of late. Theoretically, I should post more regularly now with all this free time on my hands. Now if only I could tear myself away from A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila ...

A bite out of the Big Apple

Hello dear readers! I apologize for the lengthy hiatus and I hope that there are still some of you out there checking this blog for updates. Your patience has been rewarded.

So I completed a month at Einstein Hospital in the Bronx which was literally a drink from the fire hydrant that is obstetrics. I think I averaged five hours of sleep each night and often went a whole day having consumed only dry cereal, tea, lots of coffee, and ice cream. No wonder I was constipated. Anyway aside from the toll on my sanity and personal well-being, I also got to do some pretty exciting stuff. By the end of the rotation I was delivering babies entirely on my own with the attending watching over my shoulder. It was an odd experience the first time I delivered a baby without anyone else's hands guiding mine - it was bizarre that I knew what to do without even really thinking about it. This culminated in a precipitous delivery which I ended up doing with only a nurse and a third year medical student to assist me. That was kind of a trip. Terrifying and thrilling at the same time. I rode on that adrenaline buzz for at least 48 hours after the fact.

Now I'm beginning a month at Beth Israel Medical Center in downtown Manhattan which is going to be a very different experience. The ob/gyn service isn't quite as chaotic for one, since women in Manhattan have a range of excellent hospitals at which to receive their care, whereas Einstein-Montefiore is really the best place in the Bronx to give birth, hence EVERY SINGLE PREGNANT WOMAN was there. Also, the residents are much more chill and not as tweaked out as the Einstein residents are. Don't get me wrong - I had a blast with the folks I worked with last month, and even made friends with one or two of them outside of work. But when I think about how I want to spend four years of my life in a rigorous training program, there are nuances which I have to consider.

New York City itself fits me like a glove. People here, contrary to popular belief, are not cranky and obnoxious. I have found New Yorkers to be content, down-to-earth people who don't put on airs and mire themselves in superficial bullshit. I also love the diversity of this place - I've never been someone who walks around feeling my "brown-ness" every second of every day, but when I'm put in a place with lots of other brown people, I feel myself becoming more relaxed and at ease involuntarily. All that being said, I will always be a Bostonian at heart. Go Sox.

In a lovely pause from the madness, I had the honor of reading a poem at Marisa and Ed's wedding in August. I chose my favorite love poem of all time, "Soneto XVII" by Pablo Neruda. The wedding was easily the most beautiful and enjoyable celebration I have ever attended and I am so lucky to know these two fabulous people and to be a part of their lives.

I am feeling quite burned out though. I will be glad when this rotation is over so that I can take a break from the intensity of impressing everyone and going the extra mile. As soon as I get home on October 20th, I plan on sleeping until my back aches from molding into the mattress. (But only after we celebrate Raju's 21st birthday, at long last.)

It's going to be a good year

Today I am officially 26 years old so I would like to take this opportunity to reflect a bit, and share my thoughts about the next 12 months which will be a time of tremendous transition and discovery.

For the longest time, I had this idea, this vision, that my life would become complete by the time I graduated from medical school. I used to think that turning 25 would be like flipping a switch and all my dreams and goals would fall into place. By the time I started medical school, I was doggedly set on this notion, fully convinced that it was the best path for me, indeed, the path for which I was destined. In this spirit, I threw myself into a relationship with someone who was far from the ideal life partner I was certain he was meant to be. I told myself that if he wasn't "the one," then my perfect little plan would start crumbling. So I stuck it out for as long as I could - until our jokes about living together and getting married started to become less jocular and more serious. I realized at that point that if I was to adhere to my lifelong imagined future, then clearly I should marry this person. I also realized that if I did marry him, I was certain to be miserable and unfulfilled for the rest of my life. And that had not figured into my idealistic plan.

So, at the tender age of 23, I overhauled my entire approach to my future, my plans, my goals. To myself. It became clear to me that 25 was no magic number. Looking around me, I saw people my age who, like me, were making major life decisions on the basis of fear, uncertainty, and insecurity. I vowed that I would not let myself fall victim to the lure of the path of least resistance. Armed with this new resolution and self-assurance, I did something that the "old me" wouldn't have even considered doing. I took a year off after my third year of medical school. Since I had become more attuned to my innermost yearnings, I knew that I was not ready to graduate and start an internship in 2007. The very thought of it filled me with fear and anxiety, not excitement and anticipation. This major deviation from the beaten path was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. Over the course of my year off, I was able to examine my past, present, and future without the external pressures of school and my peers. I was also able to reaffirm all the reasons I went to medical school in the first place. I attended weddings of fellow classmates with nothing but peace in my heart, whereas the "old me" would have felt sadness and a sense of failure that I was not having a wedding of my own.

I am now 11 months away from becoming a physician. When I ponder that fact, I am still plagued with fear and anxiety. But those feelings give way to a greater sense of anticipation and fulfillment that I have come so far and am truly ready to take this next step in my career. As for my personal life, I have never felt more content and enriched by my relationships with my family and dearest friends. I feel complete at this moment, not because of any outward symbols of success, such as a graduate degree and a husband, but because I have decided to feel complete with what I have, since what I have is priceless. I don't know where I will go after graduation, or who I will meet, or what direction my career will take. But I know that, no matter what, I will be true to myself, so I have nothing to fear.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Yes, I realize it has been quite a while since I last updated my blog, and I apologize to my faithful readers. All three of them. :-) But, in my defense, quite a lot has happened in the last few weeks, such that blogging was relegated to the dusty corners of my brain, to be pulled out and cleaned up as time allowed. So I present for your consideration the main highlights of late:

I wrapped up my stint at MGH, which ended in a whirlwind of training the new staff, bidding farewells/see-you-laters to my co-workers and supervisors, and making sure all loose ends were addressed. It was a great year, but definitely confirmed my place in clinical medicine, and not in research.

Along the theme of whirlwinds, my mother and I traveled to India in the last week of June to deal with some ongoing family drama. We're trying to sell her family home and it would be a lot simpler if her brother wasn't the psychotic freak that he is. The whole thing has devolved into legalities and contracts, and my uncle refuses to communicate directly with my mother so they have two lawyers and a real estate broker relaying messages back and forth. Aside from that, the trip was great. Delhi is a lot cleaner than it was three years ago and the weather was quite pleasant since the monsoons have started. My aunt, Nandini, is a riot and it's always great to see her. And we got plenty of retail therapy amidst our stressful meetings and jet-lagged naps. Actually, the jetlag wasn't that bad because I took melatonin to put myself on IST and then back onto EST when we returned. Also, we took a direct flight on Continental from Newark to Delhi, which perhaps counterintuitively, was far more comfortable and stress-free than stopping in Paris or London. After a while you forget you're on a plane and you just nap, eat, watch movies, and walk around as if you were in a tiny house. Seriously.

I have re-entered the wards, working at Memorial Hospital in high-risk obstetrics. It has been incredible. I really missed being in the hospital so it feels great to be back and having real patient interaction. I also forgot how much fun the OR is! This past week I worked the night shift since students typically get to do more and there's more time for teaching. It was exhausting but a great experience. I had one difficult night during which I assisted in the delivery of a 24-week old baby who is currently in the NICU, the delivery of deceased twins who had died at 16 weeks in utero, and a very easy delivery of a perfect baby boy after which the placenta resolutely remained in the uterus, resulting in an OR procedure to remove it. I chose Ob/Gyn because it is on the whole a happy specialty: healthy women with healthy babies. This has been my first exposure to the small but intense area of obstetrics when things go wrong. And the reality is that when things go wrong in a place where things usually go right, it can be devastatingly sad.

Finally, I have begun the application process for residency! There's this whole online rigmarole called ERAS which is used to enter all your information and then you send it off to all the programs you're interested in. My goal is to have it sent off by September. The biggest hurdle is writing my personal statement. I have a rough draft but it's so hard writing something that isn't cheesy/trite/dumb. So I'm putting it aside for now and will come back to it with a fresh outlook in a bit.

Well, that's it in a nutshell. I have one more week of high-risk obstetrics and then I switch to gynecologic oncology which will be a very different patient population and workday. Hopefully I'll have more time to blog and catch up with friends in general. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for being incommunicado. I pray that things are on a downswing...

Noo Yawk

It's official - I will be spending September and October in the fair city of New York, first in the Bronx at Weiler Hospital, and then in Manhattan at Beth Israel. I am excited and apprehensive, the same way you become anxious about dumb details like where will I eat lunch? who will I hang out with? what if I can't figure out the subway system? The crazy part is, I'm not that anxious about the actual rotations themselves. At the risk of sounding pompous, that's the easy part - simply because it's the most predictable. There are certain unversalities in the practice of medicine, and especially in Ob/Gyn, that one can rely on. So I bite my nails down to the cuticle worrying about being well-liked and not looking like a tourist. It will also be hard to be in NYC in the midst of MLB play-off madness... I will go armed with my Red Sox hat to ward off evil!

In unrelated news, my friend Amy (who happens to live in Brooklyn, so it's kind of related) has resumed her blogging habit, which is now displayed in my list of links on the right. And speaking of the Web, I recently rediscovered The Political Compass, which I remember doing in college. It does change with the times, so the questions are very relevant. Despite that, I continue to fall in the same quadrant that I belonged to in college: Libertarian left. I coulda told you that.

Building character

Do you remember the classic Calvin and Hobbes strip about "building character?" Every time Calvin's dad asks him to do a tedious chore, he justifies it as an opportunity to "build character." Well, lately at work, I've been building more character than I ever wanted to. It's kind of a crunch because we're all leaving by the end of June, except for one, so we have to shuffle things around and cover for each other until all the new staff are on board. So between me and Marisa, we will have to juggle six research studies and generally hold down the fort, which is easier said than done. As if that weren't enough, one of the doctors is writing a grant and I'm the one lucky enough to help her with it. *sarcasm alert* It just so happens with the timing of various departures that I'm the most flexible with my availability. Wooo. This would be annoying per se but it's an especially fun treat because this doc is probably one of the most anal retentive, OCD, super-anxious people I know. And trust me, that's saying a lot. The damn thing is due on May 29th, so I'm going to have to channel all my spiritual and meditative powers to stave off a psychotic break. Not to mention the large, stiff drink I'll need that night.

Anyhoo. My latest Netflix rental was Little Miss Sunshine and I absolutely loved it! That's a movie I could have bought at the store and kept. I'm glad Alan Arkin won the Oscar for his role - he was brilliant! I wish Steve Carell had won something too, though. He is incredibly talented. The whole story was very well written, acted, and filmed. I love movies like that which are like little glimpses into someone's world, kind of like being a fly on the wall for a little while. There's no big finish, no preachy moral, no melodramatic symbolism. Just a story, plain and simple. Next on the list is Miss Congeniality (pure coincidence that two movies based on beauty pageants are adjacent on my queue, I swear!). I would also like to get to the theater to see Shrek the Third sometime soon.

I also would like to draw your attention to the recent additions to my blog, namely links to my Flickr photos and my del.icio.us page. The former is a wonderful way to post, share, and organize pictures and images. The latter is a very handy place to store all your bookmarks and favorite links which you can then access from any computer. Both are free services (Flickr has the option of a paid account with more features and less advertising) and very easy to sign up for. And, as with most things, it's more fun when your friends are doing it. I haven't uploaded all my pics to Flickr yet, but there are a few from the wedding. The main way I am sharing photos right now is through Facebook, but I've been wanting something more permanent and user-friendly than Snapfish or Shutterfly. Check back often - hopefully I'll have most of my pics up in a few days!

It's good to be king... especially when you're hot

When I first heard about the new television series, The Tudors, I was excited and skeptical. How could a show with such a sexy portrayal of King Henry VIII possibly be historically accurate? Well. I'm no student of European royalty but frankly, the show is so hot, I kind of don't care. From whatever I have seen and read about the infamous Henry, so far it does seem to be faithful to true events. As Jonathan Rhys Meyers responded to the surprising depiction of an overweight, bearded old fart as a jacked, sweaty heartthrob: "The Henry that we portray is somebody who's a very, very athletic guy. But, if you were doing as much hunting, jousting, wrestling, running a country and having a lot of sex, you're going to be pretty trim." Well said. Of course there are certain liberties they take in order to make it a captivating show. Kind of like what they do in all the medical dramas - if they wanted those shows to be realistic, all you'd see is bleary-eyed residents sitting at computers checking lab results, attendings pimping medical students on esoteric biochemical pathways, and nurses taking vital signs. Not so thrilling. That's why they have floods and smallpox epidemics in the ER and people having sex in the operating room.

Speaking of which (the boring realities of medicine, that is), one of my NYC electives was approved! So I will be at the Beth Israel Medical Center in September. I will probably have to apply to another program in addition to Columbia as a safety because Columbia is playing kind of hard-to-get. In any case, I'm excited that I will be getting to try out Manhattan firsthand. I can't believe that I only have about seven weeks left of my research position at MGH. It feels like the year really flew by. I'm kind of nervous about going back to clinical work, but I know that it's just a matter of jumping in and then I'll remember how to swim. Whereas a year ago the prospect of graduating medical school was frankly terrifying, now... well, it's still terrifying but also a relief. I don't care what the media shows, med school ain't no picnic.

I'm also glad the weather is finally more conducive to outdoor activities. I've been able to go for my runs outside now, instead of slogging away on the treadmill indoors, as I prefer to do when it's below freezing. If you're an outdoor exerciser, you should check out this website which helps you map out routes anywhere in the country for running/walking. It gives total miles, elevation points, etc and you can search their database for routes other people have created. It's a pretty handy tool, and useful for traveling.

Well, that's all I have to say about that. Now I'm off to curl up with a good book and cup of tea on this rainy day...

Has spring finally sprung?

I feel like I might jinx the spell of lovely weather we've been blessed with if I dare to let myself believe that winter is finally over. I'm going to get a haircut this weekend as a symbol of shedding all that unnecessary insulation now that the sun is back in our hemisphere. That, and my layers are getting scraggly and too damn long.

A major shout-out to all my peeps from UMMS '07 who kicked ass in this year's residency match! Nearly all my friends got their first choices at top programs, most of which are in Massachusetts, so I'm happy they will be nearby next year. Of course, I'll probably have to page them at 2 AM in order to catch them while they're free, but still. I will also be ushering at Commencement so that I can watch everyone officially become an M.D.! *tear*

As I prepare for my own final year (eek! see previous post) I took the day off today from work so I could go to Worcester and get all my paperwork going for the electives I want to do in NYC. What a pain in the arse. On the upside, I got to have a leisurely lunch at El Basha with the divine Ms. Cristina (who will also be ushering), although we had one of those irritatingly efficient waitresses who can't tolerate the sight of near-empty dishes and who believes there should be no more than a five second lapse between courses. She actually asked if we wanted to order dessert and coffee approximately ten minutes into our meal, just as I was about to bite into a stuffed grape leaf and Cristina had her mouth full of chicken shawarma. We kind of stared blankly at her. She left us alone after that. [Aside: There was a group of internal medicine residents whom I recognized from my third year rotations leaving the restaurant as we were being seated and one of them was wearing his white coat and stethoscope. Under no circumstances, barring a medical emergency or bizarre costume party, should anyone need to wear a white coat and stethoscope inside a restaurant. Good grief.]

Speaking of annoying people, I have been experiencing a resurgence of homicidal ideation while riding the T. When I started working at MGH last summer I actually enjoyed taking the T, after three years of having to drive anywhere I wanted to go. Yeah, that lasted about a week before I was pining for my car. So I spent the rest of the summer and fall grinding my teeth every time someone obstinately refused to budge to make room for other people, or talked loudly on their cell at 8 AM, or insisted on reading the paper and thus taking up an additional three feet of armspan in a space which at least two human beings could occupy. But then I decided to rise above the feeling of sardine-ness and simply focus on getting from point A to point B. People are dumb, and I just had to accept it. For some reason, my self-fashioned Tao of the T isn't holding up anymore. Perhaps it's because I've witnessed too many hugely pregnant women have to stand while eight teenagers crowd into three seats, too many elderly citizens practically break a hip every time the train lurches as oblivious young people who are seated bop along to their iPods (which are always turned up to a volume audible to people in the next subway car), etc. But, in just a few more months, I'll have a daily commute to Worcester and back, and I'll probably post a rant here about the insane New Yorkers weaving around on the Pike. C'est la vie.

Fifteen months...

...'til I'm an actual doctor. As in, ostensibly capable of making life-and-death decisions. Yikes.

The months leading up to graduation are packed solid with stressful/fun plans. I'm finishing up my research at MGH by the end of June. For anyone who cares, and even if you don't (this is my corner of the universe, after all), here is the schedule from July onwards:

July '07 - Perinatal Medicine, UMass Memorial
August '07 - Gynecologic Oncology, UMass Memorial
September '07 - OB/Gyn Sub-internship, Beth Israel Medical Center, NYC
October '07 - OB/Gyn Sub-internship, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Medical Center, NYC
November - December '07 - Residency interviews
January '08 - Neurology Sub-internship, UMass
February '08 - Clinical Anatomy, UMass
March '08 - Medicine Sub-internship, Worcester Medical Center (St. Vincent's)
March 20, 2008 - Residency Match
April '08 - Himalayan Health Exchange, Dharamsala, India
May '08 - Travel
June 1, 2008 - Commencement!

The New York rotations are still tentative because I have to fill out all this paperwork to assure other schools that I'm an upstanding American medical student in good health (as opposed to an illiterate, parasite-infested farmer). But everything else is pretty much set! I am a bit apprehensive about going back to clinical work after 12 months away from it, but the research I've been involved in at MGH is fairly clinical so I'm not as rusty as I could be. It will be tough leaving behind a 9-5, Monday to Friday job for the indentured servitude that is the low rung of the medical hierarchy.

I am planning to apply to residency programs primarily in the Northeast but, for the first time in my life, I'm opening my mind to the option of going to the West coast. This is huge for someone who has stayed within a 50 mile radius of her parents' house for the past 25 years. I've only been to California once and I did enjoy it but I'd have to be sure I could survive the laid-back, earthy-crunchy Pacific attitude since I am a card-carrying Masshole. That being said, the thought of not having to shovel three feet of snow off my car in the winter and risk getting frostbite every time I expose bare skin to the elements is quite tempting. But there is time to decide about these things. Chances are pretty good I'll stay in the frigid, unfriendly, don't-f#@!*-with-me region that I call home.