anna in med school

Welcome to the world!!!  You are the lucky daughter of Lauren and Alon, two of the most special people I know.  They’re both kind, funny, smart, and beautiful, and you, of course, get all that good stuff from them…well, I can really only speak to the beautiful part, but you’re on the right track!  Seriously, kid, you have it made.  You’re going to grow up speaking Hebrew and English and Spanish, travelling far and wide, getting doted on by some seriously awesome uncles (oh Uncle Ben!), aunts, and grandparents, eating some flippin’ good hummus and brownies, going on rockin’ adventures from Mt. Washington to Petra.  You’ll have an appreciation for art, language, literature, religion, engineering, business, entrepreneurship, and whatever else Alon is up to.  You will be so loved by so many, including the myriad of your parents’ friends, far and wide.

John and I cannot wait to meet you on October 2nd, when we get to celebrate you with your family–you simply could not have picked a better one.  Until then, so much love!

in a word: f—ingbrilliant.

There are students here who have just turned 20, are set up to have two doctorates before they’re 28 (MD-PhDs)–but, who knows, they completed both high school and college early, why not round off two doctorates in five or six years?–and have already made notable contributions to their fields of interest (through research, publications, scientific discovery, etc.).  And then there are others who have had entirely separate careers, who have climbed the ranks of their respective profession, built families, and have completely overthrown that stability in order to pursue an either new or previously dormant passion for medicine.  Some come from different countries, many speak multiple languages, tons have worked abroad.  We have Fulbright scholars and Division I NCAA athletes.  51% are women; nearly a third were non-science majors.

They are all wicked smaht.

I want to say this once and be done with it: I have fear.  Not fear that I won’t make a good doctor, fear that, at least in the first couple months, I simply won’t be able to keep up with these brainiacs.  Human beings experience fear.  I won’t dwell on it, and I will absolutely not be crippled by it, but I believe that to deny it would be disingenuous.  And it will certainly help to light a fire under my ass.  Okay, I’m done ranting and raving.

Instead of studying yesterday, I read the end of Eat, Pray, Love (thanks Liz).  Jury’s still out on the book as a whole, but these words from Elizabeth Gilbert’s guru spoke to me: “Fear–who cares?”

I love this picture of my dad.

Today I received this note in the mail:

“This entitles you to ten (or maybe more) taxicab rides to or from your school on rainy or late days.  This amount can not be used for other purposes such as books, beer, or perfume.  Love, Dad and Krystyna”

I really don’t know what I did to deserve a dad like the one I have.  And he really is the master of the hand-written letter.  They’re normally short and sweet, like the one he sent last summer with a picture of him fishing in Alaska, a mama grisly and cub 15 yards upstream: “Check out the friends I made on vacation.”

And they’re pretty impeccably well-timed.  During a particularly rough round of finals my second year of college, I received this email (I just dug through my old UVA account to find it):

This is not just a little note to cheer you up.  This is actually a little letter that covers up a BIG ice cream sundae for you and three or ten friends during a study break.  AND, this little note covers up another one tomorrow.  You are supposed to treat all your friends, and then do it again.  And maybe again.

And there is a PS clause in this letter.  It says to buy some flowers for yourself, AND THEN, to buy some flowers for someone else.  Buy them.  Give them away.  Do it.  Have some fun.  Make someone else happy.  Feed them and give them flowers.  Then do it again.

WOW!!!  I sure feel better (and I felt pretty good to begin with).  I hope you feel better, and I hope other people feel even better.  Pass it on.  Love, Dad

BTW, this was totally Dad’s attitude toward the wedding: feed people; buy them flowers; make them happy.

Dad, I don’t know how or if I can ever pay you back.  But I can promise you that, if John and I are ever lucky enough to have kids, we will give your grandchildren the same love and support you’ve shown us.

Thank you. xoxo

I just rode home from school, a binder full of cell biology notes strapped to my back, a bag of Trader Joe’s groceries shoved into my front basket, and I felt a bit like Anne of Green Gables peddling down the tree-covered Pine Street in my long burgundy and blue dress (careful to not get it caught in the spokes, as Marilla might say).  I simply love my commute now that I have Caro, my beautiful Raleigh Detour 3.5, a great deal from Cambridge Bicycle shortly before moving to Philly (that story is for another day).  It’s my first bike in 15 years!

You might be wondering about the name…okay, I don’t compulsively name inanimate objects but, for a few, I make exceptions, like my former car (Carmela, after my mother, but also a cute pun, don’t you think?) and my cello (Luciano, because he’s Italian and sings like Pavarotti).  Today’s ride was just so pleasant, and I’m planning on having a pretty committed relationship with this bike, it would be a shame to just think of her as “bike.”

So, I guess it’s already obvious that I always thought of her as a woman…I mean, come on, do you think John would be at all okay with me straddling another man for six+ miles a day?  The first name that came to mind was Charlotte…I was thinking of the brand Raleigh, which led me to another North Carolina city name.  It seemed nice given the number of years John and I spent in Charlottesville, VA.  But it’s too sweet.

Oddly enough, I didn’t initially get Caro from Carolina, but rather from the Ya-Ya Sisterhood:

I was trying to think of strong, Southern (in keeping with the Raleigh theme) females in fiction–and yes I did think of Ainsley, Sookie, and Vivi–but Caro resonated.  She’s described as tall, strong, thoughtful (oh please oh please help me stay out of oncoming traffic!), reliable, and loyal (oh please oh please don’t let any part of you get stolen).

And another plus to living further away from school in order to afford living alone, it’s perfectly acceptable to strip down to my delicates when I come home dripping in sweat after my oh-so-pleasant ride home and the strength-training exercise that is maneuvering the overweight Caro up and around the 27 steps to my apartment.  Love that fat chick.

Today we watched the film adaptation of Wit, a play by Margaret Edson about a fictional English professor, Dr. Vivian Bearing, who is dying of stage IV ovarian cancer.  Although my learning team pretty much unanimously agreed that the film was heavy-handed with regards to its portrayal of patient-doctor/healthcare worker interactions, I liked the film.  I liked Vivian Bearing, an expert in the poems of John Donne who kept herself sequestered from the living during her career, choosing academics and research over human relationships–she is an intriguing protagonist.  And she made it easier, at least as an audience member, to feel a little more detached from her suffering (as awful as that sounds) and, instead, to focus my energy on the embarrassment for some of the medical professionals.  But I lost it when her former professor came to visit, crawled into bed with her, and read her The Runaway Bunny.  I used to read Ramona’s World to my mother in her bed; I have good memories of that time.

I am thankful that, after group discussion, I met up with new Philly buddy Erin.  We had a quick dinner at the Whole Foods two blocks from my house (a special treat, since I don’t let myself go there to buy groceries while I’m taking out student loans), and then went out to see Eat, Pray, Love.  Would you believe I got a dollar off my ticket price for being a student again?!–ha!  It was a healthy reminder to “smile with my liver”

that I still have a little crush on Mr. Javier Bardem (if I can find him hot even when he has the worst haircut and he’s digging a bullet out of his leg, that has to say something)

and that I could sure use a little gelato.

But for now, I should hit the books–haven’t thought about school since leaving small group at 5, and I have genetics homework.

Insight from Professor Bartolomei, expert in sex and gametes:

“When all else fails, jam it in”–referring to intracytoplasmic sperm injection, a procedure used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization during which a lab technician attempts to inject a single sperm into each egg.

Nothing spices up a morning lecture like a few well-timed one-liners and, well, any discussion of sex.  I am clearly a middle school-age boy.

and that’s Dr. Arthur Rubenstein, dean of the school of medicine.

At the white coat ceremony, he spoke about medicine being about the people and how doctors should, first and foremost, be humanists.  When I returned to my family after grabbing some refreshments, and I saw my dad talking to Dr. Rubinstein, my first thought was, Oh God, my dad is cornering the Dean! Now, I love my dad with my whole heart, and his gregariousness is certainly one of my favorite attributes, but I’m afraid I’ve never gotten over the adolescent embarrassment that accompanied any casual conversation between my dad and my teachers and coaches–and my dad was certainly never shy about approaching any of them.  I hurried over to try to relieve the dean and, imagine my surprise, found that he seemed to be talking to my family of his own volition!  Dude, the man practices what he preaches, to say the least.

Today, in our doctoring coarse, we all got to watch the dean conduct a mock patient history with a woman who has been treated at Penn for the last five years.  It was like watching an artist, his demeanor was simply impeccable.  He’s like an incredibly perceptive and sensitive, overly- educated teddy bear.  It’s been nagging me, he’s been reminding me of someone.  And, on my bike ride home today, it finally occurred to me…Dumbledore.  You know that scene at the end of book five, after Sirius dies and Harry is breaking all of Dumbledore’s trinkets in grief, and Dumbledore remains simply perfect–calm, rational, understanding, and brilliant?  Yeah, that’s my dean.  Oh my god, I love him!

But, who he really reminds me of, only physically…Queen Elizabeth II…or, perhaps more accurately, Helen Merrin.  Check it out; tell me I’m not right?

“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.”

I love this quote from You’ve Got Mail (side note: why do we insist on movie titles that are grammatically incorrect??  Can’t Hardly Wait?  More like I can hardly deal.)

Well, Center City Philly in mid-August is hardly New York in the fall, with the sticky air trapped between the buildings, but today was my real first day of school and, I have to admit, it just gets me every time.  I’m sitting at my desk flush against the window pane, the fan is on full blast, and I can’t open my ceiling-high window because of the stink bugs–I opened in on day one and was hunting the rascals for a week–fall feels like seasons away.  Still, the first day of school always has that nervous excitement, and today didn’t disappoint.  As I went searching for a recycling bin at K-mart, I had to restrain myself from buying schools supplies I don’t need–with the enormous student loans, I can hardly justify buying a 64-pack of crayons…couldn’t I use them for anatomy?

After six hours of class, I have my work cut out for me tonight.  Metabolism, genetics, cell bio…I don’t know about you, but I am WAY more excited about these than gen chem…I mean, these seem actually applicable in, well, every respect.  VESPR theory, it’s been all well and fun, but I won’t be needing you.

Happy first day of school!

the husband.  my better half.  my main squeeze.  (You will inevitably see me refer to John by all of these titles.)

Oh man, where do I begin?  I know it’s in the whole wife job description to love your husband and think he’s the shit and everything but, seriously, my husband is one great kid.  Hardly a kid, I guess–we celebrated his 30th this April–but he still has the energy (and attention span) of a four-year-old.  But I digress…

In a blog about med school, it would be shameful to not devote one of my first entries to my darling husband, who really is the driving force behind the get-anna-into-and-through-med-school campaign.  He’s a doctor himself, a third-year (chief…had to throw that in, I’m pretty proud) resident in emergency medicine, and he loves music, literature, pears, long runs, morning lattes, camping, pick-up basketball, gadgets, stories that depict struggle and end well, and a thick wood table topped with home cookin’ and surrounded by loved ones.  He  laughs often (and makes me feel hilarious…all the time) and explosively.  He’s a total snob when it comes to espresso and olive oil.  He fixes my computer, and all the other things I break.  He loves to cook (and yes, ladies, he’s definitely taken) and write and ask questions, then publish a paper with the answers.  I don’t know how he does everything he does while being a doctor, and a damn good one.  Patients and colleagues love him.  John’s kind, compassionate, intelligent, well-spoken, patient-focused, and fast.  He is my inspiration for pursuing a medical degree.

But enough mushy stuff, I can’t cram it all in, and I’m sure you don’t want to read it. I’ll leave with a quick anecdote:

Saturday, a week ago, John didn’t just drop me off in Philly.  He dropped me off, and then proceeded to go around my only slightly unpacked apartment and put together/fix anything he could–a shelving unit, a desk chair, the air conditioning window unit that he bought for me after weeks of searching on craigslist.  After an unanticipated extra trip to Ikea and Lowes, John wasn’t on the road to drive back to Boston until almost 11pm, and he didn’t hurry away…he let me cry and take my time saying goodbye and cursing the decision to go to Penn.  It was only after I returned to my matchstick apartment, blurry-eyed from watching John drive away down South Street, that I found that he had made my bed.  “A bed should be welcoming, it should make you feel good,” John said when I called a minute later.

On Tuesday, I received a big care package in the mail with him, which included my repaired backpack, d’Amico coffee, Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, spices from Boston home, old mail, file folders, a binder, and more…so back-to-school-esque, med student style.  Just ripping off the tape from the box was enough to send me into another fit of tears.

In the words of my father-in-law, I could do worse.

In his afterword to Better, Penn Med’s required summer reading for incoming first years, Atul Gawande provides the reader with five suggestions for becoming a positive deviant.  His fourth suggestion: Write Something.

“I do not mean this to be an intimidating suggestion.  It makes no difference whether you write five paragraphs for a blog, a paper for a professional journal, or a poem for a reading group.  Just write.  What you write need not achieve perfection.  It need only add some small observation about your world.”

In the last several years, I’ve been reading blogs with increasing regularity.  I follow those of friends, friends of friends, people I’ve never met, authors, musicians, other medical school applicants.  I truly love reading the tiny snippets or longer vignettes that bloggers post; the freedom of the writer inspiring, the accessibility of the reader exhilarating.  I welcome anyone to visit here, and I hope it might contribute to the blogging community I’ve come to appreciate so much.