Medical Student Burnout

Here is an article, "Medical Student Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care", by Pauline W. Chen, MD, which got circulated around the Downstate '14 class. She wrote this article in response to a paper that she read, "Burnout and Suicidal Ideation Among U.S. Medical Students." She outlines some of the unshared feelings she had as she went through medical school.

Dr. Chen writes,

"Medical school was not easy for me. I knew that I wanted to become a doctor to help people, but I had given little thought to the process. I was poorly prepared for many things: the pressure to excel in ways that seemed so far from caring for people; rapidly mounting debts I signed off on every semester; a roller coaster existence from chronic lack of sleep; hazing from the more experienced students and residents; and the realities of patient suffering despite my best efforts."

Even only two months into medical school, we have been constantly reminded by faculty about the many student counseling services available to help us with any type of problems that we may be having, ranging from needing to improve study habits to having depression. Last week, we even had a lecture about how we should deal with stress, were informed again about the various student resources at school, and even touched on the subject of how to properly respond if we were to ever come across a situation where we knew that someone was contemplating suicide.

How do you spiritually prepare yourself for such an environment? On what foundations are your motivations founded? To where and whom would you turn to for help, guidance, and counsel? And what is your source of peace and contentment? I encourage you to think about these things, as you will be entering a very worldly academic environment where you must be careful to guard your heart against what the world has to offer in terms of peace and success and continue abide in Christ for peace and contentment.

Fire Hazard

My options for cooking have been very limited, especially with very little counter space, a relatively small stove top, and most of all, because there is a fire/smoke detector merely 14ft from the stove. Well, just having a fire alarm go off isn't so bad, it happened all the time back in my old apartment at UCLA, except the alarm would always be isolated to my apartment. Here, if the alarms go off in your room, the entire building needs to evacuate. How embarrassing right? I don't want to make people leave from their studies to stand outside in the cold for 10 minutes because I was cooking dinner!

I had suddenly started craving steak the last week, as the only type of  meet I had in the freezer was chicken and the closest thing to anything cow that I had eaten lately were the mediocre cheeseburgers from the campus cafeteria. So, since I was at Trader Joe's this past Monday, I decided to buy a few ribeye steaks! I thought, I'll just make them in my oven, and hopefully it won't be so smokey. Pan searing it first won't be an option, since it'll just be a mess of smoke, and it's debatable whether or not pan searing actually seals in the juices anyways (Steak Perfection)

Unity of the Spirit

In Ephesians 4:1-6, Paul writes,

"Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore yo to walk in the manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility, and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over and through all and in all"

The Christian on-campus fellowship at SUNY Downstate that I attend has been awesome. It's been an opportunity to meet up with other fellow Christian brothers and sisters at SUNY Downstate and to worship, study the Bible, and fellowship with them. Here, I've been able to meet many others who have a great love for Christ! It's also a great blessing to be able to talk with fellow Christians about their Christian walk in the context of medical school.

One challenge of such a student group is that we are not under the direction of a single parent church or shepherd. As a result, each of us come to the fellowship meetings with many different backgrounds in terms of our understanding of God's Word and the foundation of our convictions, let alone difference in our convictions themselves. As a result, some of the ideas contributed to discussions of scripture are inevitably incorrect, as I believe that scripture is not loaded with many different alternative interpretations, but that God had a specific intention for every part of scripture.  There can be many, many ways to apply scripture to our lives, but only one interpretation.

John Macarthur: Charismatic Chaos

The 1040 movie is very supportive of the Charismatic Movement. Having been taught that many aspects of the movement are unbiblical and sometimes even trudge into the grounds of heresy, I felt really uncomfortable, especially since all of this was presented alongside the gospel.

Here is a good read on Macarthur's stance and insight into how the Charismatic Movement stands in light of scripture, God's Word, and why so many aspects of it are unbiblical. As always, with any teaching, test it with your own study of scripture and see for yourself whether Macarthur's points are indeed in-line with scripture. It's kind of long (thirteen sermons!), but it's been really good so far!

link: Charismatic Chaos, by John Macarthur

Midblock, Di Fara's, 1040

So I finally took my musculoskeletal midblock exam on Friday! It was actually a little kind of a mess since some required pictures on some of the questions weren't showing up (our tests are computerized mutiple choice questions, kind of like doing the MCAT). Twenty questions into the test I was told that I needed to restart. Anyways, after the initial problems, everything else went smooth after that!

I went out with some good friends to try out Di Fara's pizza too on Friday night as a treat for studying hard and finishing our midblock exam! It was a small cozy restaurant with walls plastered with "Best Pizza in New York, 200-" awards. There were actually a lot of customers there ready to wait ~30-40 minutes for a $4 slice! We personally waited for about 40 min. It was good pizza! Very thin and crunchy crust but not burnt (minus one edge)flavorful with plenty of cheese, topped with lots of fresh basil and extra-virgin olive oil. I actually prefer it over Grimaldi's, but they are very close!