Retrospective: Behind the Scenes

Above: The food service staff hidden in this shot from Scrubs. (ABC)

"OUT ON THE EDGE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE THINGS
YOU CAN'T SEE FROM THE CENTER."
- Kurt Vonnegut (Novelist)

I’m practically hooked on medical shows like Doogie Howser, M.D., St. Elsewhere, or even comedic favorite Scrubs (if you haven't noticed already). However, I notice that many times the focus is on the clinical (what I think many people interpret as the most interesting), and not so much on what’s supporting the medical staff. It reminded me of an experience I had back before college...

2003. My final summer in Chicago before I set off for the University of Illinois. I’ll be honest, I wanted to do something that summer, and I considered working at Eagle Country Market (It was an easy job because nobody went to the one near my house) and Best Buy (I thought it was so cool to sell computers back then). However, my mom had a better idea: why don’t I get to work at a hospital? I already wanted to become a doctor – although my reasons weren’t as defined as they are now – so I thought this was a great opportunity.

Just to let you know, I don’t come from a family of doctors. My dad has been focused on business, although my mom is my closest link to anything medically related by working in food service. Although she helped land me my first job in a hospital, my role wasn't anywhere close to being related to medicine...

My job was to work the storeroom at a food service department of a hospital on Chicago's north side. Day in and day out that summer, I took care of deliveries coming into the hospital and stacked the shelves. I was held to the same standards as everyone else in the department (including the cooks and the dishwashers), wore the same uniforms, and paid exactly the same too. I realized the latter when I got a check, and for all that work and expectation, I didn’t think I could support my education – and even my life – with that amount. I now understood that “labored work” actually made handling my finances a quite "labored" too.

But I met some amazing people from within the staff, who have worked at the hospital through many years, some at a dish machine, those at a steel boiler, and some at the tray line. They’ve been supportive of me to this day of my medical journey. I also had the pleasure of working with those outside of the staff, such as the delivery men who came in everyday. I remember one man from a local meat supplier who always wanted me to wear a jacket as I was packing the meat freezer. He said that he ended up having joint problems after years of working in them. As much as I loved his advice, I still went in without the extra layer: sometimes, I just needed the cold to refresh myself from a day's work.

At the hospital, my job duties did vary. Sometimes, I was pulled in for secretarial duties, when they were available. Some of the stuff I created still stands today, seven years later, such as the menu for the coffee shop in the adjacent retirement home and a few signs in the storeroom I got to put up reminding people to always take the stuff off the shelf date first. Other times, I was called to help out for special occasions, such as an employee barbecue, where I had to help drag a large steel grill piece by piece out to the courtyard and then flip burgers for hundreds of employees. It felt good that I was able to help out the hospital by being able to branch off from the store room. I think it was for that reason people just started call me the "floater."

I look back upon the job now, and my mom really taught me a lot of plethora of lessons that summer through helping me get that job, and I really appreciated it. These people - everyone from the people running the food service, the volunteers assisting the patients, the maintenance people making sure everything is in order – are hard-working people that are people who should be truly appreciated for making such a big operation run as smoothly as it possibly can. Doctors and nurses not the only ones working hard and breaking sweats: there’s others behind the scenes also contributing toward a hospital’s mission to care for those who need it.

When I become a doctor, I hope to be as appreciative as possible of the work that these men and women do. So the next time you turn on the TV, take a moment and focus on the people that are around the doctors and the nurses… without them the hospital setting would not be successful enough to create a full-fledged comedy or drama in a prime timeslot around it.

Page Turners

Above: Tristan Thorn and Yvaine from the 2007 movie, Stardust.

"AS ANOTHER CHAPTER OF MY LIFE

CLOSES..."

As you can tell, I get really retrospective when I leave experiences in my life that I consider significant. There's a lot to ponder, think, reflect, and analyze, especially after I recognized that a lot about me and my knowledge of medicine (of course) has changed over the last 20 months. Yet, to me, it is perplexing how such a short amount of time can change me.

The great chapter cliche is one of my favorites, used quite frequently as one traverses from one giant part of life to another. However, as I was sitting in San Juan International Airport at my gate for one last trip returning from Dominica, I noticed that there actually are lot of ways I can compare my life in Dominica to my experience of reading a really good fantasy book or story, for several reasons:

1) Having a unique main character.

Okay, I'm getting too cocky... let me rethink that. :D

1) Unique, admirable characters

I'm not going back to high school and use this time to list out all my friends that I've met here at Ross... that's not the point. The point is: I've met a lot of people here who I'm proud of being colleagues with, and just like those great characters that you see in fantasy novels (everyone from buccaneers to knights of the round table to helpful animals), each one of them have great qualities that will make them great doctors. Also, each one of them made life quite interesting for me here at Ross, either through adding spice to my day or by being supportive every day.

2) Antagonists that thicken the plot

However, the reality is that there were also people that I didn't really pleasure as much working with, people who think that they're something they're not. It's not like I can do anything to change them... my great medical adventure tells me that there's many more of those people I'll encounter in my profession. Just like every main character in a fantasy novel, although a lot of barriers will stand between me and my final goals, its my job to learn how to work with them.

3) Anticipation, Unpredictability and Excitement around every corner.

I'll admit that during every semester break, I was lined in with anticipation:

- NOT only would I be excited to return to the Nature Isle because of expecting the unexpected...

- NOT only because of pondering what adventures I'd go through with my friends...

- AND NOT only because of what new future doctors I would encounter...

BUT... because what I would learn next in the lecture hall. Even with the limits that the NBME (the ones in charge of deciding what we get out of medical education) puts on what we can learn in such a short amount of time, the world of Medicine is quite broad and filled with caveats and tricks about the human body that can enrich any mind.

4) Lessons learned.

Well, some of you may zap me on this argument, but I think I could learn a few lessons from a fantasy book (e.g. NEVER ever enter a dragon's den... Come on!) But I'll be honest that Dominica has taught me a lot not only as a medical student, but in a sense of moving on from myself. Some of the great stories that stress the importance of lessons and "growing up" include the movies The Lion King (You can't deny Simba and his lesson of Hakuna Matata) and Stardust (Tristan Thorn, who from his adventure grows from a nobody to a hero). My first 20 months have taught me some of the tools (as previous entries have said) that will be useful in not only making me into an able doctor...

... BUT also looking upon life in ways that I never imagined before.

5) Travels to Far Away Lands

Dominica, I'll be honest, is the furthest I have been away from home. Depending on how my flights to the island lay out, I could traverse to this different world in only 24-48 hours. Living in Dominica has taught me a lot about third-world countries. A lot of people at Ross complain about how Dominica isn't the States. BUT... that's the beauty of it: it isn't America. Come on people, when you signed to go to Ross, you should have known what you were getting yourself into. It's just another one of those instances where I see people not in "Carpe Diem" because all they can do is complain and not enjoy what Dominica has to offer in 16-20 months.

And that leaves off my last reason why my life Dominica was like a good book...

6) When I come to the ending, sometimes I just wish that story would never end...

But there's no doubt about it, every story (even the best of the best) has to come to a close.

---

Over the next few weeks, I'll be studying for several crucial exams for my med school career (comprehensives and boards, etc. etc.). During this time, even though my mind will be filled to the brim with info for these exams, I'll be bringing some reflections on some Non-Fictional layman non-fictional medical literature and also from recent news and events. I believe being a doctor doesn't just require just brains and loads of caffeine (Energy Drinks or Coffee, doesn't matter)... I've learned that it also is an art that requires a sense of humanity, critical thinking, and creativity, So, like I always say:

STAY TUNED.