the glory and the horror

Just in terms of how much fun I have at work, while treating patients, I have to say the kids provide the most. Not that I don’t like the adults, or ob/gyn, or things like that, but I just have the most fun with the kids.

I just realized that I haven’t said much of anything about the mission trip that we went on a couple weeks ago. It’s the annual trip to Mexico (Juarez in particular, the last few years) that Southwestern Christian Fellowship takes during spring break. The 1st and 2nd years take their trip during their spring break, and the 3rd and 4th years go during their spring break.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the 1st and 2nd year trip is always 15-20 people bigger than the 3rd and 4th years, as well as having 2-3 more doctors on the trip. I suspect it has to do with a greater desire for “clinical” experience during 1st and 2nd year, as opposed to 3rd and 4th year. But I’m not sure about the doctors. I suppose the doctors also go where the need is.

To sum up the trip in just a couple words, it was a very good trip. Kathleen thought it was a better trip than last year, in terms of being more “spiritually centered.” I’m not sure what that means exactly, so maybe she’ll expound on it. Tell her you want to see her blog more often.

I thought it was beneficial in terms of developing relationships, and being able to see friends and classmates work and live in slightly different ways than up here at school. Also, I was a team leader, and I got to see things a little differently than most. I’m not sure what good I did, since I speak very little Spanish, and relied mostly on a couple other people to do the talking for me, especially when we got to our clinic sites.

I thought it was good. Not sure what I was looking for going into it, though. I was able to finish Physician’s Covenant while I was down there. Great book. It was a nice break from the busyness of school. I felt like I was able to more regularly pray for people, for life, for things in general, and more earnestly and honestly than I had in a long time. Being back up here, I find it hard sometimes. Hard to lead Kathleen well, hard to stay focused, hard to be fully dedicated to the simple things of praying and reading/meditating on the Word.

We just turned in our schedule requests for next year, and I’m excited to see how things pan out.

For those that don’t know, the current plan now is to do 1 year of a residency, known as a transitional year or something else known as a prelim year. For the transitional year, it would be similar to third year, where I would rotate through different specialties, such as internal medicine, pediatrics, radiology, anesthesiology, etc. The prelim year would be in a specific field, most likely internal medicine. That year would be nearly all internal medicine, and the same as every other first year resident in internal medicine at that institution. Yes, that would be a real intern year for me.

Of course, my preference is the transitional year, for the breadth of experiences, as well as the relatively less difficult year.

Next year will also be interesting, with the plan being to take additional undergrad philosophy courses to round out my relatively lacking education, so that I can show the various institutions that I am serious about my philosophy studies.

Specific courses I hope to take next year include radiology, a palliative care rotation, some medicine in India, and ER at Parkland. We’ll see how things go. I hope to find out by the end of the month.

Also, we’ve had the chance to talk to a lot of our 4th year friends over the last few weeks, since Match Day, especially during the mission trip to Juarez. It’s exciting to hear about what went into their decisions, and how those things will factor into our decisions. One big thing we’re looking for is a place that doesn’t take us any further away from our families. So the East Coast is lower on the priority list by virtue of that fact. Houston looks good for both of us, and would be ideal in many ways (we’ve got friends and good leads on churches as well).

All this is to say that I am reminded of how little control I actually have in these matters, and how God’s plans have never failed me yet. He has taken me places I didn’t expect to go (like here at med school), brought different people into my life (like my now-wife, when I said I wouldn’t date in med school), and has always given me the right, best stuff at the right, best time, even if I didn’t think so in the middle of it.

Of course, that’s what any good faithful Christian ought to say, but I can honestly say that it’s the truth in my life. Things don’t always turn out the way you plan. Even less so when it’s an odd situation like going to med school and then deciding to go to graduate school even AFTER that.

Yeah, I know. Multiple people have inquired about my disappearance. At present, I’m working on some stuff, that I can’t really (and shouldn’t really) be distracted from. But still I find time to tell people why I’m not blogging. Ha.

Anyway, the Schiavo case is quite an interesting thing. Not so much from the medical ethics standpoint, but more from the sociology standpoint, and how people/society has reacted, and how different camps have reacted to the situation.

We also saw Hotel Rwanda tonight with friends. Sigh. The irony of it all…