Running Against The Clock

Today I was on the phone, metaphorically running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I was trying to make several appointments. I made a dentist appointment for Thursday. I made a gynecologist appointment for tomorrow. I tried to make an eye doctor appointment, but that didn't end well. And I was doing all this while sorting out misunderstandings between me and a certain guy I keep alluding to. But back to the main point.

BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois HMO is not the devil. Thank God since I had a huge favor to ask of them. They switched my physician's group from Rockford to Chicago and they got me in to see a doctor. Why the rush? My insurance is about to expire.

Thanks to our president and non-evil legislators in Washington, I got to stay on my dad's insurance for some extra time. I was very happy to be on my dad's insurance and not using my school's insurance. But now that I'm no longer a student, and unemployed, my time is up. So I was trying to get in before I was shut out.

Here's the good news, my insurance policy doesn't expire until November 1st, so I get extra time to sort out this issue with the vision coverage my dad is still paying for me to have. I need glasses and new contacts, but when I tried to make an appointment, I was told I wasn't covered. This is very wrong. I hope they fix it because everything I get this month has to last me.

I'm totally switching to Seasonique birth control pills because they give you a three month pack. I can at least get the first pack while I still have insurance and just plan on how I'm going to cover the cost in three months. And of course, I"m hoping I'll have a job by then and will just be counting down the days until my insurance benefits kick in. I never stop hoping for long shots.

Science & Medicine Monday: TV Dinners (And Breakfasts & Lunches) Are Very Bad For You

***This blog post is dedicated to Science & Medicine. That may include important medical and/or scientific knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to becoming a research scientist. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Science & Medicine Monday posting!***

First let me say that I'm sorry I haven't posted in a number of days, but I was gone to South Carolina for my younger cousin's graduation from high school. It was an exciting time. I covered it (very briefly) on my travel journal. You can see that webpage here.

Today's post is about an article I read on the New York Times website. I like to check out their science and health pages occasionally, and this article really got me. I am such a sucker for effective marketing. I have always known this about myself. But I never thought about the effect lovely commercials were having on my diet.

I've recently changed my eating habits pretty drastically. I decided that if I were to have a flat stomach, I would be such a hot commodity because hardly anyone has a flat stomach anymore. It's a two part plan. Step 1: do at least 100 sit ups/crunches each day. Step 2: Stop eating so many damn carbs! I have a love affair with all things carb-y and gluten-y and generally flour-y. Yeah, I'm looking at you Krispy Kreme. So, I've recently cut way down. Even though I dream about Cinnabuns dancing around me tauntingly, it's not so bad in the waking hours. And because I'm in my 20s and still have a roaring metabolism, it's already made a big difference. As long as my boobs, butt, and hips don't get smaller, I'll keep this up. For some reason, I feel like I have more energy now, how weird is that? I suppose my body has concentrated on breaking down all those stored carbs and starches, etc. so now there is just extra energy floating about.

If Americans ate only foods advertised on TV, a new report says, they would consume 25 times the recommended amount of sugar and 20 times the amount of fat they need, but less than half the dairy, fiber and fruits and vegetables.

That's a direct quote from the article. How scary is that? Do your eating habits reflect your TV watching habits? If so, you should try and focus just on the E-Trade baby. That is, unless you're both a compulsive gambler and a DIY-er.

Science & Medicine Monday: Some People Are Starting To See It Isn't The End Of The World If I'm Not A Doctor

This blog post is dedicated to Science & Medicine. That may include important medical and/or scientific knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to becoming a research scientist. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Science & Medicine Monday posting!

Church yesterday was quite interesting. I've always thought of my church as kind of gossip-y. But a good number of people asked me how school was going. And so, I had to tell a good number of people that I had withdrawn from medical school and had plans to become a research scientist instead.

My hiding out in Children's Church by volunteering there was of some use because at least I didn't have to deal with talking with everyone until after church was over. The church people I had to tell all had similar reactions: slight disappointment followed very quickly by support. And they also almost all had a bit of spite towards people who had reacted so poorly that I found myself bracing for a negative reaction. I might as well have said, "I'm not going to be a medical doctor. It's not because I can't, it's because I won't" Then turned around and bent over to wait for what would happen next.

I haven't become gun-shy about telling people, I've just become more weary about it. But I really appreciated the outpouring of support from some people.

As far as my church goes, there are now two distinct groups of people who know for a fact I'm no longer in medical school: those who were told by me and my brother and those who were told by my parents. The ones who were told by me and my brother all have reasonable questions including: Why? How? When? What next? Those who were told by my parents don't have questions, they just have judgements.

This leads me to wonder what the hell my parents have been telling people. But I guess it's more their problem than mine. My father called me a drop out again today. I didn't even bother to correct him. I just walked away.

It's just so weird to have this dichotomy in our relationship right now. Part of the time we're a normal parents-daughter group with an affable and easy relationship. The other part is tension-filled with the bitterness about not understanding the other's side constantly growing.

The way I see it, they didn't get over my brother not finishing college until he became a minister and went to seminary school. So I don't expect they'll really get over this until I either give them grandchildren or get a PhD, whichever comes first.

Science & Medicine Monday: My Ideal Research Job

This blog post is dedicated to Science & Medicine. That may include important medical and/or scientific knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to becoming a research scientist. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Science & Medicine Monday posting!

I love women's health issues. Yes, Southern Sage, it's a real term. I didn't make it up. ;)

It's what drove me to want to be an OB/GYN in the first place. But seeing as how that's no longer my chosen path, I'd love to find a research job that allows to to work in that area of medicine. Ideally, I want to do clinical research and laboratory research. I want to deal with patients, interviewing them, maybe even taking samples for laboratory research. And I want to be in the lab, personally analyzing data.

Perhaps I'll feel differently once I start working, but while I'm still unemployed I have freedom to dream. And right now my dream wants to work on cancer and fertility. A lot of women who undergo chemotherapy for cancer have fertility problems. And since cancer (especially breast cancer) can hit at a young age, doing research to improve either the therapy or fertility methods would just be a dream come true for me. The number of women I could help would far outweigh the number of patients I would've had over the years.

Medical Mondays

This blog post is dedicated to Medicine. That may include important medical knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to medicine. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Medical Mondays posting!

Abortion is something that elicits a reaction from a lot of people. I know that people have some strong opinions about it. I'm going to share mine at risk of backlash from those who feel opposite from me, but here goes.

I think abortion is a good advance in medicine, except when it's used as a form of birth control. That's why God made condoms and birth control pills and the like. One doesn't need to destroy her uterus because she couldn't get the man to put on a condom.

Despite the characterization of the women who get abortions, they are not callous bitches who think it's hip or cool to destroy life. They are people who are carrying life in their wombs and make a decision that it's not their time to have this baby. I personally think it's their choice and their right. For people who make their decisions on abortions to try and force those decisions onto other people isn't right. I think that applies to someone who tries to encourage abortion over adoption and it applies to someone who holds up a sign saying "God hates you for what you're doing" outside and abortion clinic.

Also, the decision to be anti-abortion is often based on a person's moral, ethical, or religious beliefs. In a country as diverse as this one, why is it fair that your moral beliefs outweight mine? I don't think they do. But that's why I wouldn't live in a state with crappy abortion laws. Crappy tax laws is about as much as I can take. But men can decide they don't want to be fathers with ease. They find out a woman is pregnant and they can just walk away; women didn't have that option until abortion came along. I'm not saying walking away is a good thing, I'm just saying it's a person's right. No one should be forced to be a parent. No one should be forced to be pregnant.

My personal beliefs about my body and abortion: I am not ready for a baby now. If I were pregnant, I would consider abortion. I doubt I'd actually go through with it, but it's not in my very specific family plan. I don't have any children, and unless I was in a stable relationship, I wouldn't want any.

My one regret about withdrawing from medical school is that I won't be able to perform abortions. I was going to be an OB/GYN and I was going to perform abortions. I wasn't going to have a full blown abortion clinic, but thankfully there are several states where you don't have to have one of those to be an abortion doctor. I just feel that in terms of women's health, it would've been a good thing to provide as many services as possible. I wouldn't have gone around encouraging women to get abortions, but I would've been there if that's the difficult conclusion they came to.

If I made an abortion law, most women would not be allowed to get an abortion past 8 weeks of pregnancy (that counts from conception, not last mentrual period). Week 8 is when the baby has nerves and organs and things that would make getting ripped apart pretty awful. And Week 8 is when the mother has missed two periods. She has had time to figure out something is amiss with her body and decide what to do. The exceptions would be rape and incest if she was prevented from coming to the doctor. Another bid excpetion would be in cases where carrying the baby poses a life-threatening risk to the mother or when a birth defect will significantly decrease a child's life quality/length. The same way a very religious mother can go against all doctor's advice and carry a baby that she knows will kill her to deliver, a not-so-religious mother should have the right to not carry a baby she knows will kill her to deliver.

The moral of the story is: I would pack my bags and move to a different state if I were a resident of Oklahoma or Nebraska. I don't plan on getting pregnant. But very few people who get abortions planned on it, and I wouldn't want to risk my entire future because some religious assholes in my state's Congress decided for me what I can do with my body.

Medical Mondays

This blog post is dedicated to Medicine. That may include important medical knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to medicine. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Medical Mondays posting!

In the week since I withdrew from medical school, I've been very busy. I've been working on my resume and plotting my next move. Ultimately, some of my big life plans still involve medicine. I've always wanted a free clinic, eventually.

But my mother just had the most wonderful idea. She thinks I should start a medical health care center with money the government is giving out from the health care reform bill. I don't think I want to be responsible for an entire clinic with the beaurocracy and paperwork etc. And don't even get me started on insurance companies. But I think it's something worth looking into. It would definitely give some concrete definition to what I'm going to be doing with my life. We shall see. But first, I need to find a website that explains it in better language than the law itself has, lol.

Medical Mondays

This blog post is dedicated to Medicine. That may include important medical knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to medicine. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Medical Mondays posting!

Today's post is about the big change I've made in my life that I've been referencing the last couple of days. I walked into the Dean of Medical Education's office today and informed her that I wanted to withdraw from medical school. I decided I was definitely going to do this last Thursday. I waited until today because I wanted to give myself time to let the important people in my life know and lt them try and talk me out of it.

I figured if they could come up with something I hadn't considered, I'd still have time to change my mind. Today was a pretty big test, the first in a long line of tests that wouldn't have been done for me until June 14th. I knew now was the time to get out because I didn't want that stress on me if I was sure I was done being a medical student. Also, there was a time crunch financially. They have given us more money for the summer. This money would be a part of my 2009-2010 financial aid package. I had about 8 days left to figure out whether or not to add another $16,000 to my loans. I decided now was the time to move if I was going to really do this.

I love medicine. I have a passion for it. But I no longer want to be a practicing physician. I've been feeling something like this for a while, but I finally admitted to myself what was really going on. The biggest issue was feeling like I was going to let everyone down who was so invested in my success. But I've got to do what's right for me. And the people in my life who care about me will hopefully decide that my happiness is what's most important.

The question is what to do now? I've already come up with a pretty good game plan that's up for negotiation as things develop. I'm going to finish out my lease in Rockford then move to Chicago. I'm looking for jobs doing clinical research in the Chicago area. I have just over 6 months before I have to begin paying back my loans, and I intend to get a loan repayment readjustment to match my income, whatever that will be. I'm also going to look for part time work with a nonprofit that will allow me to run a program, hopefully with children, where I would be using the medical knowledge I've learned so far. I will also be picking back up some of my hobbies. And as soon as I'm back in Chicago, I'm going to look into getting involved with Big Brother Big Sister.

I still have the ultimate goals of starting my scholarship and starting my free clinic. The difference will be how I'll be working within them now. I'm excited about the possibilities ahead, but also kind of terrified. I've just changed a path for my life that I set out on 10 years ago that had me covered for the next 10 years. But things are different now. What I'm doing takes courage, and a little bit of screw-the-world-ness. But I'm doing it. And since I've made this decision, I've felt lighter and more like me.

I sometimes wish I were one of those people who could talk about things before they're already settled in my mind. It would've helped the people in my life not feel blindsided. But I couldn't do that. I would've felt weak if they knew what I was considering and then changed my mind and decided to stay. That's just the way I work. I had to work it all out in my head first. So, it is what it is. I've made this decision to enter a job market that's unstable at best, but now was the time. I had to do it. Here's looking to the future!

Medical Mondays

This is my first ever Medical Mondays post so I hope it goes well!!

This blog post is dedicated to Medicine. That may include important medical knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to medicine. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Medical Mondays posting!

So, today's post is about outreach to minorities in medicine. There are so few minorities in medicine. The only minority who seems to be accounting for more than their population percentage is Asians, and that's only because they lump all Asians in together. But I think it's really a shame that when the M4s (fourth year medical students) graduate from U of I Rockford this year, there will only be 2.5 black people left as students in the school. And no black males. I know those dismal statistics don't apply everywhere. The Chicago campus actually has a nice number of black people. But it's a problem that occurs more often than people notice.

Americans are really good at setting up confirmation biases in their heads. They see Isaiah Washington on Grey's Anatomy, Omar Epps on House, and Hill Harper on CSI: NY, and all of a sudden people think black doctors are everywhere, especially black males. It's just not true. Think about it. How many black doctors do you personally know? Unless you work in a hospital in an urban area, I'm guessing less than 3. Probably closer to zero.

This problem doesn't affect just black people. That's just my focus cause I'm black. It's really a problem. But the bigger problem is there are no easy solutions. Affirmative Action can't fix this one. Even if we magically got more minorities into med school, there's no guarantee they even have the tools to get through. So what can be done? I wish I knew. If I had the answer to that, I'd be getting an MPH (Master's in Public Health) or and MHA (Master's in Hospital Administration) instead of an MD. But it'sjust a problem that I feel should have attention drawn to it.

Maybe someone out there somewhere has the tools to come up with a solution, but they weren't aware there was a problem. I look forward to the days when the makeup of the medical profession is actually comparable to makeup of this country.