Freedom is Not Even Skin Deep?

According to my sister, 24% of Americans have some sort of 'body art'. What about physicians? What does body art mean for the professional career of a physician and what types of body art are appropriate, if any?


The article had some interesting news:


"Body piercing in the United States is increasing in prevalence, especially among young adults. A 2001 study found that 51% of undergraduate college students at one university had pierced some part of their bodies (excluding pierced earlobes for women).2 Clearly, the medical profession will soon need to confront the issue of whether visible body piercings are appropriate within its ranks, or at least among its trainees."


In the same article, the author says:


"The medical profession has a vested interest in maintaining this dress code, which, like the uniforms of military personnel and clergy, affords professional identity and the privilege and status that come with it."


The author concludes:


"In taking on the professional role of a physician, we are not really “free to be you and me.”1 Physicians engage in relationships with patients, and all relationships require compromise and sacrifice. In the end, decisions about facial piercings and other forms of self-expression must be based on the balance between the preferences of both patients and physicians. Physicians ought to be willing to sacrifice some rights of self-expression for the benefit of patients, but they do not have the obligation to subordinate their entire identity."



The question is: Where is the fine line?

GRE Predicts Success in Graduate School

Lots of articles support the contention that the GRE predicts success in graduate school. Does it predict any measure of success in medical school? After all, lots of students take the GRE before taking the MCAT. Surely it would be interesting to find out if there's any relationship between GRE success and medical school

I hope there's a correlation, but I doubt it.

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

I would like to devote at least one post to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as I recently received an interview invitation. I've heard that Pittsburgh is a very nice city -- lots of resources -- from two credible sources and was reassured to hear that living expenses are generally affordable. The medical school is very close to both the art museum and Carnegie Mellon.

Pittsburgh's message to students strongly resonates with my views of physician training:

"From the very first day of medical school, our students wear the white coat of a physician and are treated as a peer. They understand that no two people, no matter how similar, will respond to medical care in exactly the same way. That’s why we never want you to forget that the patient is a person first. If you learn that, you will have learned the central point of why you are here, to help ease human suffering."

It's encouraging to know that Pittsburgh encourages an atmosphere of respect for their students. Recently, I saw a PBS documentary regarding physician suicide and depression, and one of the lead advocates for providing psychological resources to medical students in training was a dean at the University of Pittsburgh. This, to me, is very uplifting and likely the kind of atmosphere that I want to experience during my medical training. Pittsburgh also has among some of the highest ratings in SDN reviews.

They also have two required pediatric rotations (which sounds excellent to me!) and 7 elective options. Depending on how good the advising is, the numerous elective options might either be a great building block for a future career or a chance to demonstrate indecision. I'd definitely be interested in learning more about how advising works.

I plan on preparing the following interview questions (compiled from SDN, listed through 10/19/07):
What do you like to do?
What's your favorite book?
Have you ever considered research?
Why do you think you've succeeded?
Do you have any questions for me?
Who is/was your best friend and how would you describe her?
How to balance research and patient interaction?
Why medicine?
Why Pittsburgh?
What have you done since you graduated college?
What do you do for fun?
How would you like me to present you to the admissions committee?
Are you interested in research?
How has your day been so far?
What clinical activies have you been involved in?
Why should Pitt choose me?
Explain [AMCAS].
Any early thoughts on specialties and are you open to changing?
Are you really sure you want to do this, given your age and current career?
Tell me more about your siblings.
How well are you, a non-science major, prepared for medical school compared to a science major?
What makes you so interested in politics? (I'm a political science major) --> in my case, music or French.
Tell me about your research experience.
What book(s) would you recommend to me?
What did you do during undergrad?
What other schools did I apply to, and where do I stand with them?
What have you learned about Pitt since you have been here?
What motivates you?
What are some non-medically relatedly activities you're involved in?
Who do you go to for support?
Do you know what sort of doctor you'd like to be?

That's all for right now. There will probably be later posts on Pittsburgh.

Open-Heart Surgery

Open-Heart Surgery.

I'd never seen open-heart surgery before. I wonder how medical students practice this before actually encountering their first patient.

Abuse of Prescription and Non-Prescription Drugs

Two interesting articles on abuse of prescription and non-prescription drugs.

Physician Identity

Working for Kaplan has really been an eye-opening experience. I have to simultaneously remember my identity as a company employee, a teacher and mentor to students, and human being with her own life and interests. It's a bit hard sometimes, playing all of those roles at once, and I think it will take more training to become an entirely effective teacher.

I imagine it's not so different for physicians, though. Physicians have to act as go-betweens for pharmaceutical companies and patients, businesspersons in charge of selling a service and receiving payment for said service, and teachers of preventative medicine for their patients. And then physicians have to maintain lives and families of their own, outside of their professional work.

I feel that becoming a physician will either badly confuse me as to who I really want to be or solidify the image I have in my mind of where I will be 10-20 years from now. I might end up as an unsuccessful businesperson who cares deeply about her patients but doesn't have the wherewithal to balance all of her interests. Or I might be a practicing physician who has managed to sort out her priorities and really manage to make a difference in her patients' health.

For better or for worse, success and failure as a physician is partially in the eye of the beholder and my confidence in myself will color all of my future actions. It's up to me to reach out to the future and embrace it. It's up to me to choose my destiny and not let a career simply "happen" to me.

Carpe Diem.

Aerolept in Transit

In the process of writing numerous secondary essays for medical school applications, I began to realize that I might find a great deal of value in recording my preparation for a career in healthcare. I have had experiences in healthcare that have been personally fulfilling; others that have been terrifying; and still others that are more nuanced and will frankly require more time to truly digest. Perhaps recording my immediate thoughts will serve to create a clearer framework in which I can view my role as a prospective physician.