DNGILB: Trust me, I'm a doctor.

I just got back from camping on Guanella Pass in Colorado. very beautiful... but what I am writing about is my observation that while camping I felt very vulnerable... helpless... at the mercy of mother nature. The campsite that we had was completely isolated... not another person for miles. I could be mauled by a bear, and if my girlfriend was able to escape... she'd have to rescue the car keys from the jaws of the bear in order to go and get help... by then, i'm sure i'd be dead. I felt kind of guilty, like I should believe in the goodness of nature, or the protective hand of God, and that I should be able to just relax and enjoy the experience of isolation in nature. I did to some extent, but I continued to have in the back of my mind the story of my friend Eric having a bear right next to his head while sleeping, and having to just lay there, hoping the bear would leave him alone. The bear did leave him alone... and I experienced no bears, no mountain lions, not

Medical school prepares you for being a doctor by teaching you separate elements of knowledge needed to function within the medical community. Pharmacology, physiology, pathophysiology, anatomy... a language and a theoretical frame of reference to "be a doctor." The people skills needed to function as a doctor are developed during your intern year and residency. Well, my first day of actual work with an MD behind my name was a baptism by fire. The first day: Dr. Weisz was my attending and before we go into a see this patient he says, "We got a CT scan on this lady yesterday and it turns out she has cancer which has already spread to her spine. You are her doctor and you get to tell her that she has cancer." Are you kidding me??? I think. No, he wasn't kidding. We sit down for several minutes before going into the room and he kind of runs me through the technique of telling someone a grave diagnosis like this... then we head off to the room. I do it... she does

ADD and STDs So I don't really think I have ADD, but I think if you have a continuum with ADD on one side, and SuperFocus Powers on the other end, I'd end up on the ADD half somewhere, but not too close to the end. In fact, I made it through medical school with out needing medication, and made some good grades. But there are times in medical school where some inattention really hurts (and I do mean "hurts"). 1. STD clinic: Due to inattention to details, I screwed up a urethral swab on this innocent 19 year old who had sex for the first time. Since I screwed up the swab (throwing it away) I had to swab him again... AND evidently swabbing the urethra for a 2nd time in a day is much more painful than the first. But to compound the problem... I, in another fit of ADD, failed to pay attention to what culture tube I grabbed from the drawer. It was a pink tube for "women"... Now, I swear to this day that the two tubes contain the same solution... but I couldn't

Why blog? ---- Who on earth is ever going to read this? Probably nobody... possibly my girlfriend... possibly one of my guy friends? Why blog? ---- If nobody is going to read this... why am i writing? Why did I write an entire entry, only to delete it, because I was self-conscious that someone would think critically of what I had written? Maybe someone will read this one day...I actually signed up to blog because my friend Sam blogs One day I stumbled onto his site, and wondered... Why? why does he blog? He's got tons of friends... I used to think bloggers were people who only had friends online... some sad fat sap sitting at home on his/her computer because they were bullied too much in middle and high school to have real friends... maybe some agoraphobic who can't go out... maybe some neutropenic cancer patient who can't have the risk of being out among us germ laden folk... but not Sam. He doesn't need to blog. Maybe people blog, because everyone wants to be h