Most people think of their friends fondly. Friends are supposed to be the ones you have the "good times" with: the times you'll never remember with the people you'll never forget. Matt and I, on the other hand, consider ourselves friends during the
least fun times ever,
i.e., the first two years of medical school (well, it's not the worst, but it's not college). I thought about this for a while. What's the expression?
Friends in the best of times, friends in the worst of times? Well, it's not that bad, but for a relationship where 90% of the time together is spent studying, I'd say it's not that "best of times" either. It's what you make of the 10% that matters though, and we've made the most of it. So with that, I begin Part VII in my multi-award winning series, “Wait, That Person Got into Medical School??”
Mathieu was born and raised in the French Canadian grasslands of Montreal. There he developed a healthy sense of nationalism (
health care and hockey, eh!), yet ultimately realized that Canada is the schwag to America's northern lights (I kid, we love our Mathieu, despite looney Candianisms). So after his eighth birthday, his family left Montreal high and dry, heading to the most American place in the world: Texas! There, he spent about a decade in the blazing Southern sun, learning English and cattle-herding from scratch. On his first day of school in Amurrica, he didn't speak an ounce of Texan; by Christmas he was a budding cowboy and fully fluent. At sixteen, the Forgues Family said enough was enough with this "Everything's Bigger" bit, leaving the state for greener pastures. Matt finished out high school and pursued an undergraduate education at UNC-Chapel Hill. In college he quickly separated himself from the weeds by learning a new language (Spanish), becoming a chronic Dean List award winner, and ultimately being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. After quick stints in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Poland, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, Holland, and China (
whew!), Matt returned to school as a first year medical student. Here he continues to smoke the competition. The rest is history.
Matt and I met after an unfortunate accident involving my car first year, but we became fast friends thereafter. Around the beginning of our second year, we realized that our study styles meshed. For the longest time I have been totally against group study. Usually that's my own fault - I tend to want to play and distract the group ("why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?"). My strategy has always been "skim over details and do the minimum amount of work." However, in medical school, that isn't always best form. Matt, on the other hand, has the opposite approach. His is meticulous about taking the time to learn details and understand concepts. He'll spend a great deal of time reading and re-reading a syllabus, and by the time he's done, its indelibly etched into his CNS. Ultimately, we agreed the neither is the best approach. I was spending too little time, Matt too much, on school. So we started studying together and boom, we were more efficient and our test scores went up considerably. A Boards partnership was born. Often I want to glaze over an important detail or two, and Matt ensures that we go back and learn it. Other times I put my foot down, deciding to totally ignore a concept that is better suited for the courtship of an MD in his or her fellowship.
Fastidious and detailed, Matt is also a stickler for pronunciation and correct grammar. It is in this respect that Kelly, Ronnie, and I enjoy acting as his folie a trois. We very much love to teach him English pneumonics and American pronunciations of commonly misused vocabulary (e.g. "debris" should be phonetically pronounced, "DAY-bris" with proper inclusion of the sssssss). Ultimately, we don't want him to look uber-European on rounds next year. God-forbid he encounters skin that appears "pew de o-range."
Kidding aside, for those of you who don't know Matt, I think some of his most impressive accomplishments in my mind surround his dedication to the community. Perhaps it is because of all the swimming I did in college, but I am always in awe of the service projects that many of my classmates have undertaken. Here is the short list of a few of Matt's highlights:
- English-Spanish translator at UNC-Hospitals in the emergency room, GI unit, and high-risk OB-GYN clinic.
- Habitat for Humanity.
- After-school tutor programs in math, Spanish, and English with the L.I.F.E program in Argentina, serving some of the poorest communities in Buenos Aires.
- Worked with the Newman Center on UNC's campus as a coordinator and volunteer to serve with the Boys and Girls Club, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and served meals at the battered women's shelter and the homeless shelter in town.
Matt also worked for the Southwestern Company every summer during college. Here, he learned to run his own business, selling educational products door to door in Oklahoma City, Youngstown (OH), and Kansas City from dawn until dusk. His sales were in the 99th percentile, and this was where he developed his unwavering work ethic and mental toughness. One of the things I really appreciate about Matt is his work ethic. Knocking on doors from dawn to dusk every summer to pay for college is the epitome of this virtue.
No, Matt and I haven't had the opportunity to travel together during a semester abroad, nor celebrate an NCAA championship together despite both being in Chapel Hill for the last seven years, but we've made the most of the times we've had. I can honestly say that my past two years would've been duller, my grades lower, and my medical school experience lesser without Matt. So I am more than happy to accept that he is one of my closest friends in the worst of times.
And with that I say, au revoir!
(correctly pronounced "oww rev-ee-or")
