I’m Back

You know, the funny thing about having a blog that no one reads is that I don’t have to feel guilty about not updating it regularly. But I do anyway, even though no one reads it.
I’ve been very busy with my internship at the hospital. I love it, but I’m there usually from 7 am to around 3 and after that I just want to sleep and eat.
Today I followed a resident around, which was really nice, because I got a taste of what they do on a daily basis. Most of the time it was paperwork on the computer, so there was a lot of awkward downtime. I also met some medical students, one of which asked the dreaded question, “why do you want to be a doctor?”
I’ve always found it hard to put into words my reasons behind wanting to go into medicine. I don’t want to sound like Miss America (“I love to help people!”) but I also don’t want to sound to cynical about it. I told him that I enjoy the science behind medicine, and that while I haven’t done any research yet I think I would really like it. I think medicine is one of the only fields where you can actually see the impact you have on people’s lives, and any improvements made through research directly help people. What I also should have said is that I love to figure things out. Today as the residents were discussing patients with the attending, I was struck by the idea that each patient is like a puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle are their symptoms, medical history, lab work and so on, but also their emotional state, their background, their support system, their living conditions, etc. So many variables go into each person, and it’s so interesting how they fit together. I have always enjoyed games that require this sort of analytical skill, and I like to solve mysteries. It gives me a certain satisfaction when I work something out on my own.
Maybe that’s why I like Sherlock so much 🙂