Have you met... Ted?

"I FIGURED IF I HAD ANYWHERE TO PRESENT

FAR-FETCHED IDEAS...

ITS HERE AT TED."

I get random links from random people at different times. They fit into one of three categories:

1. Sometimes they're funny (Nik sends to me one just about every day)

2. Sometimes they're important (like the new blogs my friends Neal and Don have set up)

3. Sometimes, they just strike you in ways that you've never imagined.

Yesterday, Shraddha introduced me to TED, through a video that was demonstrating technology that might give us the sixth sense. No, TED is not a person (not a Ted Mosby, or a Ted Dansen, nor is it a hot 3 letter name appropriate for a 80s toy robot). TED is an annual conference that spreads ideas in Technology, Education, and Design. Previous speakers at the conference have included Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bono and even Bill Gates. However don't think that any Average Joe can attend their conferences live (which requires an invitation or application with annual membership fee of about $6000) What caught my eye was the subheader on the front page of their site demonstrates its effect on the world:

Inspired talks by the world's leading thinkers and doers.

I started scanning the site left and right, seeing if there were any links toward medicine or any videos, and that's when I was introduced to a girl named Eva Vertes. Her talk was called Eva Vertes Looks to the Future of Medicine. When she was 19 years old, she gave this talk about her visions of where Cancer research should be directed. When she was 17, she had discovered important links towards a drug cure for Alzheimer's. For your viewing pleasure, I have a streaming link to the 18 minute talk, above.

It was quite an engaging 18 minutes to watch for several reasons. I was particularly impressed in the way that she drove herself to start researching and seeing how the different molecules of the body interact to cause tumors to move and to spread. If you listen to her lecture, she is able to compress major medical concepts (such as what us medical students have been studying for hours under fluorescent lights & piles of textbooks) in layman's terms. However, what inspired me the most about Ms. Vertes, a Princeton student, was the way that her passion about the material and what she learned earned her a standing ovation at the end. The way that she delivered that speech, really inspired me to get into my lecture notes and study medicine not for sake of memorization or performing clinical tasks, but to understand how the human body works.

To be honest, this site was exactly what I needed. There's more videos from other aspiring leaders, just like the one that Ms. Vertes presented. Like I say... the freedom of thought idea is just so amazing. With that freedom (and the respective motivation), its able to drive people's passions to move further and to things that were so not imaginable before (Ms. Vertes is a clear example). The power of questioning allowed her to find new lines of thought and see problems like one's never seen before. Like Descartes said, Cogito ergo sum: "I think therefore I am." And it seems more and more that thinking more about what I'm studying means I can take my skills so much further. Now, that's what I call motivation for progress.

To me: We aren't in medical school just to be doctors... We're here to move medicine forward.

Oh yeah... Thanks, Shraddha. :P

Reality TV

Above: Marshall, Lily, Robyn, Barney & Ted at MacLaren's hanging out on How I Met Your Mother on CBS.

SMART GUYS ALWAYS INVOLVE

THE LIBERTY BELL.

Here's a good question for you... Have you ever just started watching at TV show and found that one of the characters who is on that show is just exactly - with a rare exception - like you? And what drives you along the show isn't just the character (that's a pretty good selling point, I'd say), is that the other characters seem like people you've actually see on an everyday basis in real life?

I think I found that show. (I'm living it right now).

No, it's pretty bad. Not my life... I'm referring to how badly addicting this show truly is. The show is the hit comedy sitcom on CBS called How I Met Your Mother. The Premise: In 2030, a 52 year old man, Ted Mosby, is telling his son and his daughter on how he met their mother back in 2005. You watch Ted's story unfold with every incident with his friends, his family, and his ways of following (assuming that you're starting from Season One, watching episodes).

However, the moment I saw Ted on the silver screen, along with his buddies who traverse with him along this trip: Barney, the womanizer, Marshall & Lily, the domesticated engaged couple, and Robyn, a girl that can easily fly along with the guys. It was literally watching some of the people I run into or I end up closely interact with as friends come into play. All surrounding a guy who is working toward something successful (at least hopes so), who likes to do crazy things, spend time with friends, and yes... do weird things with the liberty bells.

Perhaps one thing that I love about Barney & Ted is that they do crazy things. Barney one time led Ted to go to Philly two, of who they think, are silly girls down... Turns out that they were taken, but the two ended up doing something even better... Licking the Liberty Bell. Sounds crazy, but there's only so much time in life, and nothing better than doing something that is just completely out of the ordinary.

Sometimes I feel that a lot of people in medical school, with the stresses, with the logicality, with the professionalism that comes with it, lose that vibrance and that love for doing the extraordinary. I'll admit that some the things that Ted ends up doing aren't exactly up my alley, but the adventurous things that he does with his friends in the midst of New York City are things I truly admire. That's one of the parts I miss about undergrad and something I'm looking forward to in rotations and the real world, a little more adventure... and little less reliance on safety by not being adventurous.

Perhaps its just a weird way of putting my desire towards being home and having freedom? Perhaps its truly my aggravation of being in a purely academic environment, where the focus of just about everyone is to study. Who knows... but that shouldn't matter. It shouldn't affect my game plan to go adventurous.

Did I ever tell you that I rang the Liberty Bell replica at Disneyworld last year... it might not have been the same thing, but that same adventurous attitude made me reach for the ringer and whip the bell to a loud ring... in a large crowd :P. It's a start. It's time to keep moving toward newer and better things, but it starts with breaking out of the shell.

I'm going to go do some crazy things. Alright, within the limits of life, but gotta remember... form tests, like boards come first... for now.