EPTI am really grateful for all the replies at the last blog. If you post something in response to a blog, I will read it and reply, so go back and check if you'd like to see my responses. And a warning to new people... this is a rambling one. I couldn't shorten this up any more.
So.. I started broad. I'd like to talk some more specifics, mainly about decision-making, right up where I am now and what it means to interact in the real world. Every single person will be stuck in a situation with an 'impossible' answer, one we can't know to be right in the moment, but can be verified after the fact. I am not talking "House"-esque, "It's never lupus!! Give him the chemo!" I am talking about actual life decisions.
To go to medical school, the average student will apply with a 30P MCAT score, a 3.7 GPA from an average college, 150-200 hours of clinical shadowing, similar amount of time volunteering, research, and some sob story for their essay. In the year I applied, I was much better than that. It doesn't really matter much except that I had choice of where to go for an MD, a PhD (in Chemistry), or an MD/PhD.
So I had to choose between degrees, right? That seems like the pressing issue, one would think. Well, we are all victims of society. So I immediately through out everything out of state that wasn't top 10 in what I was looking at. Down to 2 schools. Why? Because I am FUCKING STUPID. Everyone going for an MD in this day and age can be boiled down to 1 of 3 people:
1) Daddy's girl/Mama's boy: I don't need to explain them.
2) Truly dedicated to helping people but not academically oriented
3) Neurotic, inferiority complex-driven morons (if you guess this one, you found Waldo)
I choose BU (Boston University) over MIT for undergraduate. Why? Because I recognized I was not MIT material. This was one of my few smart decisions. Ever. Cherish this moment with me. MIT (except the business kids, they are dicks) is for people who have intellectual self esteem and are borderline suicidal because they care so much about learning they want to be academically water-boarded for 60 hours a week with a 4 year minimum commitment. Yeah, I am a little bitch.
So I was left between the top school, arguably in the world, for MD/PhD and an average MD at a nameless southern state school (whoops, you might already know how this goes if you read Part I).
This how I understand decision-making: know who you are. Know who you are EXACTLY. Save your hopes and dreams for your personal life. I'll talk about this in the future, but be accurate to your nature in your career pursuits, be reckless in your love pursuits. We all want to be President at some stage, but how many of us really want to spend a life in politics? How many of us actually can put up with that bullshit? Not I. PhDs are for true brilliance. For people who literally never wake up a single morning and feel comfortable with not learning something academically novel and interesting. People who read textbooks and think "how can you even print this shit, when we still have only elucidated half of this information to any concrete detail?" People who know not that the world can be conquered, but that THEY can conquer the world.
I don't tell lies. Literally. It gets me into trouble. I don't mean that I do not lie about big things, I mean, if you ask me what drugs I've done, I just tell you. Whether I've known you years or minutes. My mom made me the mistake of asking about my sex life early on in undergraduate. The thing is though, those aren't the lies that make us make awful decisions. Those kind of lies are lies of convenience. The lies that lead us down idiotic roads are the ones we don't even notice we are telling ourselves.
My solution has been to tell someone every time I do something stupid or embarrassing. The first time I got pulled over by a cop, I accidentally handed him a condom instead of my ID. I was a bit frazzled because my grandma has just died, but still. How UNREAL is that? Start with the small things. Admit when you put your pants on backwards, you get wasted after a single drink. Why? It steals their significance. Once you do it with the little things, you learn to be brutally honest with yourself about yourself.
So I am choosing between a position so prestigious, if I published ONE paper in my entire 8 years there, I'd still get more job offers than you and your extended family combined, because academia is more inbred than West Virginia... and some nameless school where I will graduate a nameless MD and be subject to the same grueling trials every other nameless MD does. I would be no one. Here is where the brutal self-honest comes in, but you know what?
I AM no one. I am just a super nerdy kid who is willing to spend every day of his life learning INANE details of genetic pathways I never need except for Boards. I am intelligent, I can give myself that. But guess what? It doesn't fucking matter! Why?
Because my real passion is to have a wife who loves me and about 34 kids. That's it. I'd be a stay at home dad in a heartbeat. Having a job to brag about at my high school reunion? Could. Give. A. Fuck. Yep. I will be a great doctor because I want to help people and I've got the training, but I bet I could be just as content with my career if I were a PT or a teacher. All I wanted was a job I'd be "happy" with in the sense that we are "happy" with eggplant. As far as vegetables go? It's fine. Nothing more, nothing less. So I'll do something that can contribute to society, something that lets me continue to be a closet science nerd as a function of my job, and the rest of it will work out. Honesty, man. That's all it comes down to.
Don't believe me? Day[9] would agree. He lives the dream. Go watch Day[9] Daily 100. Choosing to be just a nobody MD is living MY dream.
Later y'all!
