Cuz She's in Doctor School

The words of our 8-year-old neighbor to her friend, as I shooed them away so that I could "do homework."  This is an increasingly popular scenario at our house as our neighbor scoots down to play with our dog (a welcome distraction) and I inevitably have to toss her out to hit the books.

Because, indeed, I am in doctor school.  And this is something that I have many thoughts on.  It is busy, it is a lot of work, it is messy, complicated.  Suddenly I feel like I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.  On the train home today I found myself making lists of my values and interests, trying to keep track of what I get passionate about.  I may have put a bit too much caché in the ability of medical school to define my life trajectory.  There are still oh-so-many choices.

The best and hardest part about school is having found a wide number of people with genuine interest in social justice and health and how that all comes together.  I say hard because between the exposure, in lunchtime talks sponsored by student organization and in our required (hooray!) social medicine and global health class, to reading and lecture after reading and lecture about just how dismal the state of health is in this country and the world it all feels about overwhelming.  Suddenly the idea of how to shape the kind of medical practice I would like to have and how to ensure that it fits with the overwhelming need I am feeling to be part of the solution of widespread health disparities is constantly in the forefront of my mind.  

I feel so full of statistics and measures that outline the problems.  Today's lovely tidbit highlighting part of the impact of life as a Black woman in this country: infant mortality rates among Black women with a college degree is higher than that of white women who did not graduate from high school.  There's one to chew on.  I've also been stuck on the knowledge that Native Americans have about the worst population health in this country, and yet we have about the least amount of measured data on that population to really assess the problem.  Perhaps the real kicker has been realizing more fully how little the actual health system does to address the health of the USA.  Even when you're insured and well-insured and you have great doctors, our society is just set up to make us unhealthy.   Here's what's on my mind.  Perhaps I will begin to actually blog again.