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.

Oh Captain, My Captain

Above: Robin Williams as Mr. Keating in the 1989 film.

"QUESTION EVERYTHING..."

I just had to watch it. Yes, its the 1989 film Dead Poets Society that you probably ended up watching in English class somewhere between in middle or high school (provided you were born in the 1980s). For some of you that haven't been paying attention to pop culture, this film features Robin Williams as Mr. Keating, an English teacher at one of the best boarding schools in 1950s America. He basically teaches his students different ways of challenging life & what it presents. Although some critics said that the movie was so moving, he "had to vomit," (Roger Ebert), many critics said acclaimed the movie as very powerful. I have to agree with those that fit with the latter. Last night, as I sat down tired after practicing physical exams for my midterm for hours, I decided to pop in the film.

It all came back to me why this film easily fits as one of my favorite films of all time.

My revelation had to come with how it had to appeal to learning medicine. One of the stereotypes of medicine that I had gotten is that it is basically a memorization science. Each and every time I'd sit down and study, it seemed that way...

Tamoxifen... SERM... Raloxifen... Different SERM... [rinse, repeat, and recycle]

Tamoxifen... SERM... Raloxifen... ... ... [snore]

However, Mr. Keating... he brings up a good point while in class. After telling his students to take a look at a new perspective (which he does by telling each one of them to stand up straight on his desk and look down upon the classroom), he tells them to... question everything. I interpreted that as not accepting everything for an answer. From what I've been vying while studying for boards is, that's so true... I can understand things so much better if I place importance on it by questioning it and figuring out, for instance, why condition X causes Ys symptoms. Sometimes I'll let my mind flow and I'll link random things together... like the movie emphasizes: Freedom of Thought.

MEDICINE IS NOT MEMORIZATION... ITS THE ART OF ENGINEERING...

On the other hand, medical students I'm sure can vie for me: we don't have the time to just "art" our way through exams. Nor does it seem possible to cover so much information in such a short time (about two years). We have to know the inside outs of the human body... everything from mechanisms to things that go wrong to parts of anatomy... and we could go on forever. That was one of the hardest things to get used to, was limiting my thought (or now I see it as shortcutting) via memorization so I could get the grade (or just pass), but not getting a full understanding. It's just like that systematic thought idea that I learned in the OR several weeks ago.

In the end, my mind would give up and say something like: So what if Tamoxifen is a SERM... whoop de doodle... (THEN I WOULD FORGET ABOUT THE DRUG)

For those of you who are new to the medical field, beginning in the basic sciences, I encourage you to find a way... a way of thought... to motivate yourself to somehow start linking things medically from the beginning, because that flowing thought is what you're going to see in clinicals... you're going to need that freedom away from memorization, studying from grades, in order to have that true understanding to save that patient.

I everyone had a Mr. Keating in their med school career. To teach students to be thinkers (by teaching them how to think) and to teach students to understand (and not just get the material). Then, med school wouldn't just be flash cards and powerpoint slides anymore... it'd be like painting or creating your own vision of the human body. And with that, the field of medicine, as I see it, could be yours.

For some odd reason, I hope I can be in the position in the future to help med students see things that way... provided that I master this skill in medical school.

In that way, I want to be a Mr. Keating.