Last Friday I went out with my close high school friends to watch Iron Man 2. I’ve never actually seen Iron Man 1 – I heard it was pretty good though, so I was excited to see this nonetheless (on a side note, I’ve seen Dark Knight but not Batman Begins – movie catch up this summer?). Don’t want to give much away, except that I thought that I loved the Tony Stark character (Iron Man’s real name for those who don’t know. I guess I just find the cocky, funny, sarcastic character-type entertaining) and the first half or so of the movie was very entertaining. Unfortunately, I thought that the ending was pretty bad.

To me it felt like the film team made 2 hours of the movie, and then realized “oh no, we only have 10 minutes left, so we better find some way to end it!”. At first it boggled my mind that people who are really good at making movies and do it for a living could make an ending so bad (yah yah I guess this is debatable…). But then I started to wonder whether they actually cared (if most movie goers will be pleased and the film rakes in the bucks, which is does, how much do they really care…).

My Left Pinky

So as you guys know, I had an X-ray done for my left pinky. As it turns out, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. On the results that imaging clinic sent to my family doctor, the radiologist says he “suspects” that it is an old fracture that healed improperly. So basically I fractured my left pinky and didn’t even realize it, and it healed in a somewhat deformed position (basically my pinky can’t hyperextend and is constantly dipped).

The good news is that my pinky is completely functionally fine except that it’s can’t completely extend. My doctor tells me that the only concern would be aesthetics, and that a plastic surgeon may or may not be able to fix it. No one I know even noticed it except my dad, and it’s not bothering me, so I’m just going to leave it for now. If it starts bothering me then maybe I’ll get it looked at, but for now, it’s really not a big deal.

Last Month of School

So the school year is winding down. I have four exams coming up: Brain and Behaviour Final, Clinical Skills OSCEs, Community Health Final, and Pharmacology. The last two exams should be pretty easy, so I just need to get past the next week and a half and I think it’ll be a relative breeze. My final exam is on May 31 (Monday). Our class voted to have the final exam on May 31 as opposed to Friday May 28 (to have more studying time), but I really regret voting that way now, because I don’t think having the extra weekend will really affect how much I would end up studying.

It’s crazy how fast this year has gone. I guess that happens every year though. School always seems to fly by really fast. It’s also strange to think that I’ll be mostly done with class in a bit more than a year when I start clerkship. That will be the next big transition. I’m actually trying to not think too much about it and just enjoy where I am in my training.

Healthcare Innovation

As I have sort of reflected on before, I feel like healthcare innovation is where I see myself being most in medicine in the long run. I have always believed in the “if you know what you want, why wait?” mentality. And yet I wasn’t really following that for a long time. After some thinking and thanks to support/encouragement from close family and friends, I started taking some steps to make this a part of my life starting now.

I don’t really want to disclose details until I get the ball rolling, but I’m currently in the progress of getting involved with a group that does the very things that interest me in the hospital setting. Finding new and innovative ways to reduce wait times, improve communication within the health care team, reduce medical error, etc. etc. – they do exactly these things, and then work on getting them implemented in major hospitals. Very cool stuff and very close to what I want to do long term. I finally feel like I’m going where I need to go.

Related posts:

1. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application
2. Speaking Engagements!
3. The Evolution of MedHopeful

Last night I was at dinner with a couple of friends. A good friend of mine from class was sitting across from me, and at one point, the topic of generosity came up. The discussion helped elucidate a concept that I’ve always believed, but never really put onto paper, so I guess now is a good enough time than ever.

I have always been really big on kindness. I like kind and courteous people. A lot.

The basic concept I want to propose is that when it comes to success, being nice and kind goes a long way. I think more so than we often realize.

Appreciation

I have to admit, it’s nice to feel appreciated when you do a good deed, like when you help someone. It actually really annoys me when I help someone out and I don’t get a simple thank you in return – thanking someone for taking their time to help you is so simple and makes such a huge emotional difference, that it boggles my mind when people don’t do this.

I remember one time in an undergraduate biology class a complete stranger asked me if I could send them the notes I had typed up that day since they came a bit late. I said sure. I emailed them to her and never heard back.

I receive quite a few emails here at MedHopeful and while I’m more than happy to answer questions and provide personal advice, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth when nothing comes back in return – not even a simple thank you.

What happens? The next time you email me, I’m going to remember you as the person who wasn’t even courteous enough to say thank you – and it would probably be naive to think that wouldn’t consciously or subconsciously affect any advice I provide in the future.

And I’m sure you might be a nice, great person, but look at the impression that was left behind instead. Not saying thanks implies being ungrateful, even if you were in fact grateful.

When you get help, take the time to say thanks. All it takes is a second, but it goes a long way to building good, strong relationships.

Generosity

This was actually what my friend I were discussing last night. The conclusion we came to at the end of the discussion was basically that while being selfish was good short-term, being generous pays huge dividends long term.

When you give, people want to repay you back, often with more than you originally gave. I’ve learned the most about generosity from my close high school friends. They are insanely generous with me without ever asking for anything in return. All it makes me want to do is figure out a way to be just as generous, if not more so, back to them for years to come.

Contrast that with being selfish. While being selfish helps you out tomorrow, it burns bridges for years to come.

Just Being Plain Nice

I remember when I was in high school, and a friend of my brother’s was running for student council and he had been successful in elections every year. While talking to him, I remember thinking to myself “wow, he’s so nice. I can’t even find one reason to not like him.” I bet he got my vote that year.

We think with our emotions more than we’d like to admit. We also find it easier to look for reasons to dislike something as opposed for reasons to like something – that is, we tend to go for “process of elimination”. It’s just easier to single out things we don’t like than point out things we do. And the same goes with people.

Look at how patients rate their physicians, for example. Recall that last physician who ticked you off – was it because of their attitude, or because of their quality of treatment? Or remember your favourite physician – are they your favourite because they are nice to you? Pretty sure the physician I dislike most provided me with sound advice but was extremely condescending.

So take the time to be nice. It’s not that hard, and it’ll go a long way.

Related posts:

1. 2 Years Down, 2 Years to Go – A Long and Much Needed Update
2. Trial and error – because it’s okay to not know what you want
3. Two important questions

MedHopeful will be Moving onto Bigger and Better Things

Just to state right off the bat, no, this does not mean I am leaving the blog! I have come into a very exciting opportunity to integrate MedHopeful as part of a bigger and better project, that I think many of you will be very interested in.

I don’t want to give too many details, but the gist is that I will be continuing to blog and write articles (and from this point forward, primarily about medical school admissions and my experience as a medical student), but as part of this new project, there will be many more opportunities and resources for you to become involved.

I’m not sure when all of these changes will come into full effect, but it will be obvious when you come here one day and the design is completely different – I think you will all enjoy the big new things the change will bring to the blog.

500 Days of Summer

While I’m here, I figured I’d do a plug for one of the best movies of the summer. I thought everything was simply awesome except for maybe the last minute, but nonetheless, I highly recommend seeing it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a fantastic actor, and if you like this movie, you should also check out The Lookout.

One Week to Go!

So medical school starts earlier and ends later than most other undergraduate programs, which I guess I can kind of understand. My orientation week starts next Monday, August 24, and my actual medical school classes start on Monday, August, 31. If you’re interested, you can see what my orientation week is going to involve here.

To be honest, I am probably more nervous than excited. I don’t really like change, and I was feeling comfortable at York, and am now basically starting over at UofT. I knew this day was coming, but it’s sort of hard to fathom months ago when I had just gotten accepted and summer was going to start soon. Frankly speaking, I feel like it takes me a while to warm up to people I meet for the first time (maybe some of you can relate) – I tend to be a bit cautious at first, feeling my way through things, so I avoid looking like a jerk or anything. My biggest fear is always just not meeting people that I click with, but I guess the good thing about a large class like UofT’s (~225 students or so) is that there will probably be more people overall that you will enjoy being with.

In any case, I hope to try and document my experience each day during orientation week – I kind of see each day ending late, so I’m not sure if I will have the energy to write before passing out each night, but we’ll see.

The plan for this last week is to spend a few days in Montreal with some friends starting Tuesday, then relax a bit and get ready for the big jump over the weekend.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable summer!

Related posts:

1. Keep your eyes on the future and embrace change
2. 2 Years Down, 2 Years to Go – A Long and Much Needed Update
3. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application

I have been writing a lot recently on work, careers, and happiness, and I feel like I may have come off with sort of this noble attitude that people should not be working for money and that if you are working for money, you’re an awful person. I apologize if it came off that way, and that could not be further from the truth.

All of these ideas revolving around work, income, and happiness are concepts I constantly struggle with, and it’s hard to come up with an overall generalization that works. I do think that being able to support yourself financially is important – in fact, it is necessary to survive. At the same time, I believe that if you want to live a long and happy life, you need to be doing things in your life that make you happy – and really, there’s nothing greater than being able to do work that you love and get paid for it.

On the other hand, maybe the type of work you love doing does not support as well as you’d like financially, so you don’t do it – that’s a legitimate concern. If a physician was paid minimum wage, would I do it? The quick answer would probably be no (assuming I had no other source of income). And it’s not because I love money, but it’s because I would love my family more (if any career of mine was bad for my family, I would quit in a second) and would want to support them in ways where getting paid minimum wage for the type of work and hours a physician does would not be enough. It would also hinder other aspects and interests in my life because I would have to constantly worry about my financial situation, paying all of my bills, etc. The thought of being able to deal with the stress of both say a career in neurosurgery at work, and then the financial stress while home is pretty scary.

So it is absolutely a more complex situation than maybe I had written about earlier, and I can understand many reasons why people may do the work that they do. On the other hand, some of you are in a situation where you have opportunity to choose among many possible types of work to pursue and finances may not be as much of an issue – and you are really fortunate to be in this situation, and should really take advantage of it.

Assuming you are in such a situation, here’s one exercise that may help you figure out what you really enjoy doing, and what type of pursuits would make you happy.

Imagine you had an unlimited amount of money right now. What would you be doing?

Would you still be going to school?

Playing computer games competitively?

There are no wrong or right answers, but it’s definitely something interesting to think about.

If the type of career you are working towards is not one of your answers to this hypothetical situation, maybe you should rethink the career path you’ve put yourself on - not saying your current path is wrong, but it’s definitely something interesting and worth thinking more about.

Related posts:

1. Adapting to authority
2. Are you succeeding? If not, maybe you’re measuring success the wrong way
3. A is for Attitude – maintaining a positive attitude even when everything goes bad

So if I was awake I would definitely have time to write a few things, but I don’t write particularly well when I’m tired (who does?), and I think the readers deserve more than some tired attempt if I’m trying to provide something useful!

I appreciate all the comments so far from everyone. You are all very kind, and I appreciate that, as well as all your suggestions for future topics.

I’m looking to have How to Write a Winning Scholarship Essay Part 3: Writing the Essay up by this Friday evening.

Also, with the release of the Loran Award Application and the TD Scholarship deadlines coming up soon, I would like to have an article up soon for advice for each of those particular applications.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about applying to universities, which programs to select, etc. so I will be trying to get some good articles up about that in October/November, since I know those of you graduating will need to be making some crucial decisions soon.

Hope everyone’s first week of school went well!

Related posts:

1. 10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application