I'll say this: it really hasn't always been easy thus far. Some weeks I cannot wait to get to my computer because I know exactly what I want to write about (The Pelvic Exam being a great example - Why Asheville being another that quickly comes to mind). Other times I've been hard pressed to come up with something I really want to discuss with myself. Some weeks it works, some weeks it doesn't. I can honestly say that The Pitter-Patter of Learning is one of the worst things I've ever written. On the other hand, when I really didn't know what I wanted to talk about last week, I think I ended up churning out a pretty good rant about Facebook. Truth is, some weeks there is nothing to say, and other times there isn't enough room on the e-page. However, I'm always happy once I've fleshed it all out (even if it was terrible), because every once in a while when I take the time to read some of my previous thoughts, they are a good representation of how I feel. Not every moment will be filled with new adventures or "saving lives" (in fact, most won't), but retrospective writing, even of the mundane, is important for growth.
Now I think it's nice when other people read this blog (it is indeed a public forum), but I will always be the intended reader. I can't wait to read this stuff ten years from now and see what I was thinking (or wasn't thinking, or should have been thinking!). And that is one of the things that I'm going to truly enjoy: how wrong I've been. I can already go back to some of my first posts and see that I've been a complete idiot. When I was applying to medical schools, I thought that Duke would be the best fit for me. Holy crap!! That would've been a huge mistake. There is no reason to pay that much for school when UNC is right in my backyard (and many would consider a better option). I wasn't "medically mature" enough to do the first two years in one, i.e. the Duke curriculum. I really needed time to grow into the profession, not get thrown into the mix right away (with people just as angsty as I am). But did I know that at the time? Nope. I think it's great though that I spilled my thoughts on to that page. I don't regret that writing at all. With age and experience comes wisdom, and re-reading reminds me of my mistakes. That's how you learn; that's how you get better. Ten years from now when I'm a OB-GYN or a psychiatrist, I'm going to laugh that I ever considered being am EM or critical care doc!
Silly me.
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn." - Benjamin Franklin
That's powerful stuff right there. Honestly though, time has flown by. Every Christmas I say that "it feels like just yesterday when I got my first medical school acceptance.." and yet it does feel like just yesterday. If you had told me when I got that acceptance that 100 posts from now I'd be Mr. June, in a music video, starting a program for athletes in medicine, working EMS again, to Peru and back, heading to Asheville, all with learning to be a doctor, I'd tell you that that sounds exhausting (and it has been... but it's also been wonderful). So I ask myself, where will the next 100 blogs take me? That's just two years from now. I will be through Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey, through Asheville, perhaps back in Chapel Hill or up in Boston. But that was already the plan. Maybe I'll have chosen a specialty by then, something I would have never thought of. Maybe I'll be deciding on residency locations. Maybe I'll have failed out. Maybe I'll be in another YouTube hit. Maybe I'll have a cat. Maybe I'll hate white russians (okay, that's going too far).
The point is, it's been an amazing 100 posts, but I think the next 100 are going to be even better. Out of the classroom and into the real world (and then back into the classroom... and then back into the real world). It'll be tough to keep writing during the busier months, but I believe my experiences in the near future will be ten times more powerful, making this experiment all the more worthwhile.
It's something I look forward to, and something I look forward to looking back on.
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