I have an uncanny ability to sleep through lectures.
But it’s a trait that didn’t develop until medical school. Perhaps a cure for my lecture narcolepsy would have helped my GPA through the basic science years. Perhaps not.
But maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I slept through college classes too? I can’t seem to remember having that much difficulty staying awake in my “History of Baseball” course though, so I’ll assume for now that the change was induced by the rise in tuition.
For examaple, I think I never slept through high school classes. Those very virtually free. College cost a bit of money although scholarships covered just about every expense. I guess I dozed off in a few classes here or there–certainly more than high school. Sleeping through medical school lectures on the other hand was an almost daily affair. I had some tuition expenses covered by scholarship, but the majority of my funding came from loans (i.e. I’m paying for it, dammit).
Clearly there is an inverse relationship between the amount of time spent sleeping in class to the cost of said class.
Some would argue that such a tendency to doze through lectures is counter-productive to one’s education. On some levels that is true. But I take another view. You see, with the expenses of medical school comes extreme amounts of stress. Ya know–kinda like buying your first house. Every time you see a bill your pulse jumps to 120. At least with a house you build equity. The same can’t be said for an M.D.
But one of the best ways to cope with stress is proper rest. So by napping during pathology lectures I was doing my body a favor. I was avoiding burnout.
Makes sense, no?
This just in: Medical school is reaaaalllly expensive.
Think about that before you apply.
That is all.
I picked up a library card the other day–a first for me–and decided to get a few books in an effort to alleviate the boredom that comes with having absolutely nothing to do for a few months.
Which brings me to a bigger point. Who even knew you could go to a “library” and that you could “check out” books for a specified period of time. Does Barnes and Noble know anything about this?
First up was The Moviegoer by Walter Percy. It’s the story of Binx Bolling, an almost-thirty stockbroker from New Orleans who tries to find meaning in much of life’s meaningless events. His attempts to avoid “the malaise” involve flings with his secretarys and frequent treks to the …well…movies.
But don’t look for some overwhelmingly page turning plot. Percy did not construct that type of novel. He must hate Dan Brown. What you do find is a beautifully written narrative of eight days in the life of this almost “Southern Gentleman”–a character study, if you will. It’s existentialist in flavor, but Percy delves a bit deeper. Bolling spends his time searching for an escape from the ennui (yeah, I had to look that one up) rather than accepting it–I just cannot picture Bolling murdering a man on the beach a la The Stranger.
I’d recommend this book to anyone from the South and anyone looking for a more thought-provoking read. It is truly well written.
And oh yeah, Walker Percy went to medical school. Heh.
I love it when other people do the work for me.
Hoover discusses this recent Jama article concerning residency work hours:
Nearly half of all months had violations during ambulatory settings and nearly 62% of months had violations where interns were working on inpatient services.
The ACGME needs to start cracking some balls if they want programs to take these duty restrictions seriously. If nothing is done, or programs are simply slapped on the wrist, the system will continue to be abused and work hour restrictions will be nothing more than fudged numbers on some slip of paper in the program director’s office.
I had mentioned in a previous comment that residency training is an odd bird. This work hour issue is one of those oddities.
Of course, I come from a fairly benign medical school–at least as far as the medicine program is concerned. I never heard much in the way of complaints about work hours from the residents I rotated with. Surgery is another issue…those poor bastards were miserable.
At any rate, who decided it was a good idea to keep people for 30 hours every 3rd night? Or 4th night? Or even 6th night for that matter? Musta been a bunch of military folks…
I’ve never read a single thing that Dr. Atul Gawande has written–and he’s written plenty. His resume includes two books, 30 columns for Slate, and numerous articles for the New Yorker. He’s also a Rhodes Scholar and a graduate of Harvard Medical School. Of course, he is a surgeon–so that’s at least one strike against him. But I digress.
The New York Times has a nice profile of Dr. Gawande this week which conveniently coincides with the release of his second book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Perfomance. It is an interesting read and gives pretty good insight to the life of such an accomplished and respected surgeon.
It’s the final paragraph, though, that makes me wonder if I’ve missed out on something by never reading Dr. Gawande’s work:
Pulling out his Blackberry, he said, “It seems like there’s a story in every nook and cranny of medicine,†and scrolling down a list of 106 ideas he’d saved, he picked a few. “Itching,†he said. “Nobody really understands what it is. Chernobyl. Twenty years on, what really happened there? Why weren’t there as many cancer cases as we predicted? And here’s a good one: why, if we have so many health-policy experts in this country, do we have such bad health policy?â€
Maybe I’ll go and pick up his next book.
