different strokes for different folks.

is it an activity or just a moment? or is it a general feeling, like a background? reminds me of short-acting versus long-acting insulin.

what is ultimate happiness?

now i think i’m beginning to understand the whole ‘nirvana-i’m-a-rich-brown-prince-gonna-find-it’ thing, like it relates to me more now for whatever reason.

dude was bored - left the castle to find ‘purpose.’ granted his purpose ultimately ended up being an entire ‘religion’ / attained enlightenment, maybe ‘nirvana’ was his purpose, and, maybe finding purpose is also finding nirvana.

just sayin’. 

i want to do surgery. and travel. somehow.

when i first moved down here, i didn’t really know what to expect. i knew i didn’t like houston, and i went on and on about how shitty of a town it was to ann. i’m sure this got annoying pretty fast. we didn’t know where to go, where to eat, what to see or do. it was also summer, so it was hot, muggy, just all around gross.

when i finally started intern year, i was punched square in the face with the reality of how fucking hard it is to be a doctor, how little i knew about everything that went on around me in the hospital, in healthcare, in the real world. upper levels would mention the “learning curve,” and i had always assumed they meant the medical knowledge aspect, but for me, this was my first ever real-life job - and i sucked ballz.

i cried once. i hated life. suicidal ideation positive. there were days when i stared out a window of whichever hospital i was in, for just a moment, and think about how it would feel to climp to the top of one of the other many hospital towers surrounding me, and just end it all and jump.

six months later. i beat it. i finally felt more like a doctor, and less like a “medical student,” though, truly, all doctors should be life long learners. in my mind, i give thanks to my ed rotation, which was a blast.

an aside. a lot of my IM colleagues hate the ED. they say it’s there’s no thinking involved, etc, blah blah blah. oh my, these self-described, self-entitled pseudo-intellects. the arrogance makes me positive for nausea and vomiting and rage. it’s disgusting. 

anyway. i had talked about my depression with vladimir during the whole process, and he dx me as “adjustment disorder.” i didn’t quite fit criteria for mdd. we had thought about what i was adjusting too, and originally we had pinned it on not getting into ophtho. but, the entire time, i knew it was something else. and, now that i have it, what i was missing previously, it was so obvious all along. a basic skill i had never mastered and always shunned: the history and physical.

in short, my ED experience let me practice going over this very important skill over and over again, with explicit time constraints. when i finished my EM shifts, i was already starting to feel… good; it was fucking awesome, actually.

just recently, i’ve been able to go back home, got to see my ex-roomies, my old house and family. it was good seeing them, but now that i’m back, i’ve realized how great it’s been to have moved away from the nest. how awesome and amazing it’s been to meet new people and make new friends. but, most importantly, how much i love living with, being with, and being in love with, ann lili nguyen.

but i can’t wait to go visit vladimir in san diego again. and i want to do general surgery.

1  colon & rectal surgery 39

2  obstetrics/gynecology 38

3  anesthesiology 37

4  dermatology 35

5  hematology 35

6  ophthalmology 35

7  general surgery 35

8  radiology 34

9  plastic surgery 34

10  pediatrics 34

11  gastroenterology 34

12  radiation oncology 34

13  otolaryngology 33

14  orthopaedic surgery 33

15  nuclear med 33

16  urology 32

17  infectious disease 32

18  rheumatology 31

19  pulmonology 31

20  thoracic surgery 31

21  neurology 31

22  pathology 30

23  nephrology 30

24  emergency med 30

25  allergy & immunology 29

26  cardiology 29

27  med oncology 29

28  neurosurgery 29

29  occupational med 29

30  physical med & rehabilitation 28

31  endocrinology 28

32  general internal med 27

33  aerospace med 26

34  psychiatry 24

35  preventive med 24

36  family practice 21

bahamas = boring.

uncomfortable juxtaposition of super commercialized, western disneyland jail and tourist-driven third world blight. 

also, been there 3 times too many now.

on january 13th i experienced a strange mixture of foreboding and creeping depression with a slight hint of desperate ego-saving denial. i both knew and didn’t want to know what was going to happen when don called me and told me dr. tucker had just emailed him he had gotten into san antonio for ophthamology. i finally did get a response after calling the dean’s office a few times: it was a short email with the question, “did you hear anything back from san francisco?”

my first thought was, oh shit. why didn’t she just tell me i got into shreveport? then it started to sink in that despite my best efforts at mentally crossing my fingers and knocking on wood i would soon meet my doom/fate. eventually it all came out that i didn’t match. and so i finished off the evening with some more tacos from the local gas station/indigent grocery market, and played some games of starcraft 2 with “donner nguyen”, as listed in my phone (to differentiate from don mayer nguyen - two separate dons.)

and the next morning i was off to an interview at brackenridge hospital.