Medicine Shouldn't Fulfill Doctors & Questioning Your Capability Of Becoming A Doctor. #443

Give him some tussin' . Yeah , boy let that tussin' get in there , boy . I don't know what's wrong with this kid .

All you have to do is show that your income is increased and you can buy more benefits at that time . No medical questions asked .

And what it does is it will ask you before you purchase . It will say , hey , can we search for different coupon codes to see if we can get you the best deal ? So instead of paying full price , you may be paying 10% , 5% off , 30% off all that stuff . It sounds like a great deal and initially it was great .

I've been using it up until I found out about this issue a couple of weeks ago . But what Honey has been doing ? Honey has also teamed up with a bunch of YouTubers and basically started sponsoring their videos in exchange for saying , hey , just kind of big us up , Honey , we'll sponsor one of your videos , but just let people know like , hey , honey's out there .

And millions of people , tens of millions of people use Honey daily . It's installed on their app . Tens of millions of people use Honey daily . It's installed on their app . So companies hate or you know , companies that sell . They hate Honey , right ? Because they always have to put a discount or have always can .

They would go to the company and they would say hey , listen , Macy's , we got like 30 million users who are going to be able to use this 10% , 20% or 30% discount on your item , whatever it may be . Why don't we do this Rather than let them use 30% ?

Why don't we make a deal where you'll give them 10% , right , you give them 10% off , and then you give us another 10% as a kickback , and then we will reroute that coupon code for it to only give 20% off , basically .

So , rather than give them a 30% , rather than give the user a 30% off coupon , we'll just make sure that everybody , without even knowing , gets 20% off , so that you guys save , we get our kickback , and then the customer thinks that they're getting the best deal out there , right ? So that was shysty move number one .

Then the second shysty move that they were doing is when they teamed up with the youtubers . Each youtuber would get a coupon code , right ? So , hey , guys , like , make sure you use my coupon code and I'll get a little kickback . You're supporting the channel and then you know you'll get your discount whatever you may get .

So what was happening is you go to Amazon , you put in you know Docs Outside the Box , d-o-t-b . Well , unknowingly , what would happen is Honey would change that code without you even knowing . If you put in D-O-T-B , would change it to their special type of code .

That would not only decrease the amount of savings that the user would get , but it would completely erase the kickback that the YouTuber would get . So that was shysty move number two and this video went viral . I don't know where that video is .

I got to look it up , but that video went viral a couple of weeks ago and since then , I think Honey lost at least 10 to 15 million users , like in a span of at least 10 to 15 million users , like in a span of at least 48 to 72 hours . So it's crazy . But honey , this is one of those examples of honey or any of these type of apps .

Like you know they're , they're , they're telling you one thing , basically it's that what is that game ? Three card monty , or what is that three shell , what's the shell game ? I don't know .

It's that shell game that you see on the streets where , like you think that you're going to win but you're always going to lose , like there's always someone out there to scam you . And yeah , that's what they were doing .

They were scamming the public and they were scamming the people who they were partnering with and , in essence , they were kind of extorting the companies also . So I took it off my , my the companies also . So I took it off my , my . Um , I'll go back to using YouTube or using Google to

find my promo codes and go from there .

Right , they're stealing from you because what they've done is , you know you've marketed for them and you didn't really pay them for the marketing . So you , in essence , have just stolen the money . By just withholding the money that you say that they were owed , you breached the contract . That's really messed up . Do they ? Do they have like stark laws ?

So if he says that a product is blessed , if he says that it's whack , you know the product is going to do . You know , respectively , whatever he says he says , and imagine he has a link to any of those pages and if you click on his page and then you go and buy the product , you know there's a windfall that you can get from it , Like Tesla .

I remember like years ago you know , Tesla used to have this referral program . They still do where , like , if you refer people , if you get a Tesla and then you use your link to , you know , invite other people to purchase a Tesla , then you get a whole bunch of credits and eventually you get free supercharging for life , which is a big deal , right .

Because , supercharging can cost anywhere between $20 to $50 per charge right . So if you can get free supercharging and that's like free gas for the rest of your life that's a big deal . So he had sold so many referral links that he's got free charging for life . It's a big deal . So he had sold so many referral links that he's got free charging for life .

It's a big deal , right ? So you can imagine if he's trying to sell like a cell phone and he's working with Honey and they pay him , I don't know . Let's say they pay him a thousand dollars to make a video , but the real ads , or the real money , is going to come from people purchasing , you know , or using that code .

That's all that money that they're stealing from them . So companies ain't loyal . Let's leave it to you like that .

Right , a lot of people they love Cash App initially and then they put up with the fees that they had to pay , until Zelle came out and like I think I don't know how many people use Cash App anymore . Yeah , not a lot of people are using Cash .

So I always assumed that Honey was going to be making its money by doing kind of a deal with these retailers who are selling things right To say , hey , okay , we're going to give your you know you're , we're going to give your customers a discount , which , frankly , giving someone a discount potentially could make them buy more , right ?

So , whereas , you know , I might not have bought as much , you know , but now that I got a 30% discount , I might feel like , yeah , I might want to buy a little bit more . So what you weren't going to make before you're actually going to make it , you know some other way .

It's fine , right , it's all about volume and numbers and things like that , but for me I'm just like how did you think that you were going to get away with not doing ? I ?

That equity can come up in different forms it could be stock , it could be , you know , some stake in ownership , and in this case , it's well , for every sale that you make , I want a piece of that , you know . So I think that that's where you know , even if they said consistent with doing this with every single YouTuber .

Or you know , I could see , right before the exchange is done or the checkout is done . They changed my code , but I took it off . I took it off sales , and you know it's up to you guys to decide how y'all want to work with these type of companies , but I took it off and I guess we could just leave it at that for the sake of the conversation .

Let's keep it moving . No matter where you are in your career , you've seen patients your age or younger get seriously injured , have a long term illness or even have a mental health issue that affects their ability to work . Now , what if that was you ? No , for real . What if that was you ? Without disability insurance , how are you going to replace your paycheck ?

In episode 176 , jamie Fleissner of Cephalife Insurance explains why the best time to buy disability insurance is during your residency .

Usually you get less healthy over time , so when you're healthy , it's easier to acquire the coverage . Number two it's also less expensive because it's based on your age and your health . You're not getting younger or healthier over time , so you're at the ideal time . The earlier you get it and the younger you are , the less expensive it's going to be .

Um , someone writes I'm slowly starting to understand that the root cause of my residency depression stems from having believed for what feels like forever that I was supposed to be fulfilled by my choice of specialty medicine in general .

It sucks to be in your 30s now and realize that if medicine itself is the sole reason I'm supposed to feel fulfilled , then well , I'm not going to be fulfilled . Even worse is being a single woman in your 30s . Ah , that's where this comes from , them eggs In the Midwest .

Realizing this because options for many family partnership are so scant Lol , but that's a personal problem . So tell me about when you realize you are a complete person outside of medicine and that being a doctor is still just a job . I don't know what ETA means . Is that like ? Is that ?

Um , I think that a lot of people go into medicine and other professions thinking once I get into this , I'm going to be fulfilled , right , like you know , okay , the other day we were talking about this and you guys were talking you were , you were actually talking about the pit , that new , that new show , the Pit , and I was asking you because you were like ,

yeah , it's really real and it's really raw , and I said , well , does it have ?

Does it have that kind of like I'm a doctor and I'm just going to heal and that's what I'm going to do , because that's what I meant to do all my life , you know , and I feel like sometimes people think they're going to go into medicine and they're going to have a Grey's Anatomy moment or an ER moment or a I don't know .

Name your medical TV show here . Like there's this new TV show called Doc and there's a point at which , you know , in the trailer she was like you know , basically healing is what I do best and I'm going to get back to that , you know , and I'm just like I that doesn't happen and it's probably never going to happen for you , not in that way .

So if you're looking to your profession to be fulfilled , then you might be sorely disappointed . You know , and I think that there has to be more to fulfillment than just I'm going to complete this degree and complete this training . I just , I don't know , I don't .

I mean I could , but realistically , right , why do I have to have it figured out by 30 ? Like , am I not going to make it to 60 ? Like who's to say ? Like there are plenty of people who change directions several times .

compare it to what I wanted to do , I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I think they have it harder now , particularly if you're not knowing if you want to go into , like medicine or law or maybe even engineering , because outside of those three things , like , if you follow a certain path , you're going to be a doctor , if you follow a certain path , you're

going to be a lawyer or you're going to be an engineer . If you follow a certain path , you're going to be a lawyer or you're going to be an engineer or whatever .

So you have to figure out your purpose a lot earlier on , whereas , like , figure out your purpose a lot earlier on , whereas you think that you know what you want to do , which you think equates to what your purpose is , which equates to you what your fulfillment is . So , you're fulfilled , maybe through the path of trying to get into medical school .

You're fulfilled and you think you have purpose while you're in med school and in residency . And then you start to see , like the realities of being a doctor .

When you get showcased into residency , or you get this showcase to you as an attending , you're like wait , it's not what I asked for , this is not what I bargained for , this is not what I thought it was going to be like .

And I think in essence it becomes like this existential crisis of like I'm not fulfilled and is the end product , which is me being a doctor . Is that really what I want ? No-transcript , right , it's like you know it's at the upper echelon of that , but in essence it's a job that you check in and you check out .

That I think a lot of people think about and I think that we have to be a lot more open about that and having these type of discussions and I'm glad that it came up on a resident on the Reddit post but in that TV show , the Pit , or even in ER , I always got that that sentiment , like it was just like .

This is this is very gritty , right , like being a doctor or going through the process is a very gritty process and the end goal , yeah , you're super focused on that , but you got to know that at the end , like you have to do something else afterwards . You can't just rest on the laurel of I became a doctor , yes , I made it and that's it .

It's like all right . Well , you know what other tricks can you do ? Having children ? And now you're in your mid thirties and you're getting close to AMA . It's going to be really shocking and jarring . Like we went through that and stuff , right .

fulfilled , you need to meet these certain criteria and the expectations and whatnot . Do you do you think that plays a role ? Absolutely ?

real right . 50 years ago , the society's goal of you making it was white picket fence house you know 2.5 children and a dog . And you know , working at GM or working at a car company and having like a , what kind of job is a union type job ? Right . And then you know , modernization occurs , globalization occurs , and that's false to shit .

And now it's something else . Right , like you , you look at my kids right now they want to be a YouTuber . Right , like my son , my oldest son , he wants to either drive Uber or he wants to be a YouTuber because that's freaking glamorous to them . Right , that's what they see on TV , that's what they see on YouTube , that's what they , you know .

So it's , it's literally what society puts out . There is what we're going to value the most . Right , so that's how I feel . I believe , yeah , I think that the the , the nostalgia that we have with doctors , that's gone , it's waning , it's gone . Right , like , there's a show I got to look it up . What's his name ? I forgot the lung doctor .

I figure what his name is , but he's oh J , Is it Dr Jarrett ?

And I'm just sitting there and I'm like this show will do really good . But I'm like , damn , the fact that we actually need this show is very telling , right , and I was thinking , I was like I was going to leave him a message , but I in my mind , I'm like is this show even going to do well ?

Right , because we don't trust people , don't trust doctors anymore , people don't trust medical institutions anymore , unless you're in an absolute emergency , right ? Or unless you actually need to buy into the system , then they'll trust you and even then they don't even a hundred percent trust you .

But the question is , will the general public actually believe them ? I don't know .

I'm like really Tell me where to sign up , because I ain't getting none yet , but you know . So I think we're half and half . But to your question about Real quick .

You know how , like now , like it's really cool for like the right to like question the FBI and stuff , but it wasn't cool , like back in the 80s when black people were questioning the FBI , like yo , you bring a crack cocaine into the Los Angeles , and nobody wanted to , nobody wanted to believe all this stuff , right ?

But oftentimes the dictum is wait until you have like that part of society right that you know that has kind of a hold on women basically going into medicine or these types of professions that are considered , you know , high powered , or at least take a lot of education , right ?

Don't get derailed by that man in your life , don't let him impregnate you , otherwise you won't finish and you'll be dependent on him and you're an independent woman .

I think , and this is why I said , many women not all , but many women , especially those that are headed in careers that take a lot of time to attain , a lot of education to attain it's like no , stay laser focused

. Because if you get pregnant right , let's say , you got a girl pregnant in med school , right , let's say that happened how does that affect your career ?

Right , me being pregnant would not affect you in any way , shape or form , not physically , not socially . Well , maybe socially if I told everybody you was a baby daddy . We're not talking about that , but I mean , think you're , but that's what you're talking about . We're talking about there are many more implications , you know , to being pregnant , right ?

So you know , yeah , you're talking about food , housing , clothing , all this kind of stuff . Those things are very important , but we're not talking about , you know , the , the condition of being pregnant , the complications that potentially come with being pregnant . So , would you have dropped out if you were pregnant ? I don't know . I actually don't know .

I'm going to pursue either further education or a job . Okay , um , I ended up pregnant . David and I meet up again in December . I'm about 20 weeks , right , I'm starting to show up because it's my second pregnancy . You show a lot faster . Nobody would hire me .

Nobody would hire me because they knew for a fact that you know I would go on maternity leave at some point . I actually didn't have a job from when I graduated , all the way up until I started freelancing , and that was only . You know I freelanced because I couldn't get a job . Nobody would hire me . It did not affect my husband at all .

Right , me being pregnant did not affect him at all . He got up , he went to work , he lived his life , he promoted . He woke up and did it . Me being pregnant did nothing for him except , exactly , I had another mouth to feed , obviously .

You know , once they realize that wait a minute , there are other things and men do this too , but I can only speak from a woman's perspective that once they realize that I've you know , I've finished down this path of attaining this career and I want other things and I'm still not necessarily fulfilled .

Sometimes , depending on where they are and how old they are , it actually might be too late or it might be very challenging for them to reach that .

So I think , for the women out there , just be very careful about thinking that you're going to be fulfilled only by your career , because that's that's very unrealistic , and I think that g uh , jordan grumet the the previous episodes that you had with him .

It kind of talks about purpose and you know what is meant by purpose and the small p in purpose versus the large p in purpose . I think you got to be really , really careful about that .

I'm getting to the point where I don't care who does it any longer . Everything else I'm doing outside of my employed work is in pursuance of leaving the ICU and these nights behind . I've done my duty , not my problem . And MP , hey , listen , man , I'll just leave it like this . Those nights , those nights are , it's a different animal .

My mother did nights as a nurse , a nursing aide , for at least 15 years , 20 years , and I feel like it aged another 30 years on her . Like the amount of what we should have done is

we should have looked up . Like there's got to be some pub public articles that talk about what night shift does to you in terms of your circadian rhythm , how tired you are , like . For me , the biggest thing is like when you get home from a night shift , like is that breakfast really or is that dinner ?

If you want to work out , like you want to spend time , like , how does all of this work ? Is it in reverse ? So I like to do , I like to do night shift mainly because you know I like to put out fires and then during the daytime I like to be out , but also at the same time I like to do daytime in a certain fashion . But I'm not gonna lie .

Like night shift , night shift while you're doing it , like in the night shift , is okay . It's the afterwards , like how do you recover when you're finished with your night shift ? And it takes like for me three to four days to really get back into a regular rhythm where I'm sleeping during the daytime and not , you know , being up at night .

That's where I struggle and you can tell like I'm way more irritable the next couple of days after I finish a night shift .

People say look , if I'm working nights you have to pay me more , because I want more compensation .

Look , not , my problem is a is is an approach that I don't want to describe is the way that you have to look at it , but there has to be a point where everybody has to basically check out right . Like there's a point where you have to check out and it's like this is not my issue anymore . You go , the next person handles it . I see it out a lot .

One of the jobs that I have , I have tiger text , which I absolutely can't stand hey tiger text If anybody's listening , I don't care , there's different types of tiger text out there . There's Am I on messaging .

There's tiger text , but , kiara , basically what it is is imagine anybody in the hospital being able to get in touch with you through messaging on an app right , and it sends messages through you that are HIPAA compliant , through your phone right , and anybody can send you a message right , and when they send you this message , they can tell if you read it and

they can tell if you haven't read it or not . And there's a lot of times where I think I don't like these apps because it decreases the barrier for people to reach you and to like , in essence , information dump . So , IE , like , I think , for nurses it completely takes them off the hook .

So if things are very important and need to get in contact with you , great , contact me , you can call me , you can text me , that's fine .

But there are things that are really not that big of a deal , but because it's just information that they don't want to deal with anymore and they just want to unload , they will call you or they will text you about things that , in essence , not all of them .

Not all of them but I'm just saying what it does is just makes it easier for them to get in contact with you . So at 2 o'clock in the morning you may get called about a potassium that's like 3.4 , which to you that's not that big of a deal . Like we can talk about this at 7 o'clock in the morning , Right , and I'm using that as an example .

But there's times where doctors will consult other doctors with this app and send messages and I'm like like I think you should call somebody . I think , as a doctor , you should call another doctor to say hey , listen , I need to consult you for X , y , z reasons because of this , right .

But now , with Tiger text , you literally take a picture of the patient's face and you take a picture . Well , you take a picture of their , of their picture . In the EMR system . The MRN number is already there , and then you write and text what the diagnosis is and then that's it .

No context , no connotations , and then that person figures it out and then they leave their note . I don't like that , right , because I need to know exactly why you're contacting me , what's the issue ? Do I need to respond immediately or not , and so forth . No-transcript . So for me , I log off completely when my shift is over .

I log off because I don't want any messages . Whatever it is , I'm not on .

And that's the issue is that hospitals cannot close like that . It just they just can't , right , they can't close , and so somebody has to do those nights .

You just got to figure out if you are the person who is best suited to do those nights , right , if you are okay with being a doctor , but you are not okay with working a certain shift or , you know , working in a certain setting . I think this is really really this particular tweet , or whatever they call it . What are they calling tweets now ? Exes .

This post is a really , really , really good example of someone who , potentially , is working in a fashion that doesn't really suit him . Right , he probably needs a different environment if he indeed still wants to be in medicine . Right , so he doesn't have to work nights . Right , that is almost kind of his choice , basically to work nights .

Like , he gets to choose how he wants to work , based on the job that he takes , and so if this is not something that you know he wants to do , then the question is well , sir , should you be moving on to somewhere else ?

Right , like I need to play devil's advocate here , because it's not like someone kidnapped him and made him work in the hospital at night .

Right , this is just kind of the way things work , like you , you know , just because the hospital needs someone at night doesn't mean that that's the job that you should be taking , and maybe you should just take another job .

You're like oh , you know , when you were a kid , my , my mom , used to work the night shift , and it's like you don't really think about that right yeah , I I can't understand .

they go to bed . So most nights just won't start between will start between what ?

Six , between six and 8 pm , depending on where you're working right , so between six and 8 pm , I mean , your kids are home from school , you've cooked them dinner , you might have even taken them to you know some sort of event , you know some extracurricular activity , or if they had something at school , you woke yourself up , you know in the middle of the day

and you went , or if there was a meeting that you had to have with their teacher , you were able to make it . So it , I mean it , makes complete sense . The question is just , you know , is that worth it ? Right , and I don't know if he has kids , but is that worth it for ?

So right If you don't like nights , then switch to days , and if you don't like days , then you have to do something different , but I just think that what I tell . Like there was a med student on the service a couple weeks ago .

He's interested in going into trauma critical care and I told him , like the reason why I love trauma , critical care is because I could do three different things . I could do trauma , I could do critical care and I could do general surgery .

And in this job that I'm doing right now , I'm doing it all together , but there are things about it that I don't like and I'm learning and I have been able to kind of push certain things out that I don't enjoy as much . No-transcript . And like , well , I don't want this to occur . And it's like , well , they stay on .

And then you're tired and it's like well you know you staying on for to do a 30 hour shift . Is that really worth it to the patient ? As opposed to maybe signing out after 12 hours letting a fresh person and go from there . And what I've seen is that there's less errors , there's less mistakes , there's less take backs to the OR because people make mistakes .

So in general , like from a surgical perspective , I always give men and women the same advice and say listen , like if you're looking for a lifestyle that kind of , or if you're looking for a job or a profession or specialty that works and gives you the best of both worlds , where you can operate and , kind of , you know , still have your life .

You know , I think ER obviously is very , you know , is compatible with that . Trauma is compatible with that . I don't know about OB .

You're with your kids majority of the days of the week and I'm like , majority of the days of the month , I'm actually with my kids . So I think there needs to be a shift in how students are and even full-fledged doctors are , looking at how they work in their specialties .

Right , there's a very traditional way of looking at well , does ER give us the good lifestyle that we want ? Yes , great Check ER as something I want to do . Does internal medicine do that ? Maybe ? No , it doesn't do that . So , no , I won't do that .

Like , those days are gone , right , and especially because the way that people are practicing now , you know , with us doing locums , with people being , you know , surgicalists and hospitalists and things like that , like those traditional ways of looking at these professions , is done .

You don't have to be an OB that goes into the office six days , you know , five days a week , you know , and then be on call the sixth day of the week Like you don't have to do that anymore .

And I think that the older generation has an issue with that , just in general , because they grew up with the go , go go mentality , whereas we watched them , you know , we watched them struggle , we watched them do , go hard and whatnot , work themselves to the bone , and then it's like what do you get at the end ? Right , so you didn't get to travel .

You're not even happy with your job . You weren't home for your kids . We're all like in our 30s now and you're mad because you missed us as children , I think you're missing one point .

You see , like older , older basketball players are upset with the newer basketball players . Why are you making so much money , y'all not as skilled as us X , y and Z ? How is it that you're able to determine you're not going to play all these different games ?

It's like listen , old fogey , like don't be mad , because now I'm able to just really be very clear about what I want , what I don't want , when I'm going to play all these different things .

All those different things play a role , and for us to not say that or mention that like we'd be remiss- if we didn't say that he loves that word . We'd be remiss if we didn't say that he loves that word . To be remiss if we didn't say that . So yeah , there's , there's .

You know , some stores don't open on sundays , right , um , you cannot buy , you cannot go to the liquor store on a sunday , whereas up north you got every day of the week you know it's some doctors don't open on Wednesday . Like , wednesday is a half day here , so if you want to go , you got to go before like 12 o'clock .

or 75 , 75 of their check go towards housing , exactly like .

But there were times when we were lash key kids , right . My mom used to tell us once you go in the house , do not open that door . So there were times I would actually have to use a bucket to use the bathroom , my sister and I , because our bathroom was actually , we had to go out , go through the hallway into the back .

Yeah , where the bathroom was , where there was another apartment , there was another . You know , there were renters in the apartment in the back and there was a kitchen back there , but the kitchen belonged to the man who lived upstairs .

. Do we have time to do this ? Do we have time to do ?

Not unsettling in the , you know , you ever notice that an orthopedic surgeon never writes to me and says yo like , what you're saying is crazy .

So I have a question have you , and how often , ever questioned if you were capable of becoming a doctor ? Have you questioned what type of doctor you wanted to be ? Specialty and integrity wise ? You understood why you were doing it , but have you just felt out of place at times ? I felt that way the last time I was in the OR observing .

I just felt like I'm overstepping , overstepping my capabilities , overstepping their boundaries and the way , Just wondering have you felt that ? How did you overcome it ? As always , thank you for being a great platform that really wants to hear from your audience and being transparent .

I also want to thank Niamh for coming up with this episode and show , and this show is amazing it doesn't say that . Why do you have Dr Renee on the show ? She seems to be a drag on the show .

So let's see what was his question .

She's um that that might be part of it , but I don't question it but okay um , I never questioned whether I not I whether or not I had the ability to become a doctor .

I have questioned , however . I have questioned how I'm going to do it . What steps am I going to take ? What's the best steps ? Am I doing it the right way ?

I have had those questions in the past , but I never questioned whether or not I was actually going to become a doctor , and part of that is because I felt like shoot if other people could do it , why can't I do it ? I mean , it can't be . You know , it don't take rocket science to become a doctor . That would be a rocket scientist .

Now that I question whether or not I could be a rocket scientist , Ah , so that's a .

Um , and I , initially , when I applied to medical school , I applied without really any type of strategy and I just thought that if I got into medical school , it would probably be you know one school I got into and that was it , and then I would probably just try to get through , hang on and try to graduate and that is not what happened .

Remember we were walking through SEP man , tell the story , man . Anyway , we were walking through . We were walking through this , Chiara , don't ?

You know , school's about to start and this guy kept going oh man , I'm going to just fail out , I'm going to just fail out . And he just kept saying it over and over and over again as we're walking through the building and , mind you , we didn't really know each other that well just yet .

So I turned to him and I was like , dude , why don't you just drop out already ?

So I went and I worked at the sports authority which doesn't exist anymore . So I was selling anything from Jordans to basketball hoops to whatever it may be . I was selling that .

Then I worked at CompUSA and the entire time in my mind , while I was selling all these different things , even my sister , nadine Swa , she tried to get me a job at I think she tried to get me a job at AT&T .

And they say , hey , listen , we have this opportunity where you can become what's called a graduate assistant , where you in essence are a coach for whatever sport . So I was a coach for track and cross country and what they do is they'll give you a stipend but then they fully , completely pay for all of your education , right ?

So if you need to take additional classes , I'm like , boom , that's what I need . So I kind of talked it over with my parents and , you know , just kind of said , I'll go back and do that because it had to be better than me just working at the sports authority or comp usa is that you mentioned how you didn't know if you could teach .

I reached out to my mentor at the time and I couldn't get in touch with that person also , so I don't know what was going on with that person during that time , but I couldn't get in touch with him to kind of discuss certain things . That's a different subject actually . We should talk about that .

Like helping your mentees in the good times and helping them in the good in the bad times also . So I figured it out eventually and I decided to kind of just be a bit more strategic with how I was applying to medical school .

And I specifically remember like it was during winter break and I had keys to the track and field office Everybody's gone and there was a big snowstorm on campus .

And I just remember , every day I would just wake up in the morning and I would go and walk through the snow to the office where they had a print , a printer , a fax , they had the legal paper and they had the really nice stock paper . And I remember just like hoping to goodness , like I'm going to here's my personal statement , I'm going to fold it up .

I just remember getting paper cuts and folding it up and I remember licking in them all and putting a stamp on them and then going to the mailbox and just hoping that they open it and that they , you know , let me in . This is like , remember , this is like 2001 , 2002 .

No-transcript , I'm extremely competitive , right . And once I got in I was like yo , now that I'm here , I'm knocking this out the door , right .

It wasn't hard for me at all , it was just oh , I know I get this . Like I've seen all of this stuff before the anatomy and all that stuff . This is just memorization and this is repeat and this is just recycled over and over and over again . But this is not organic chemistry , this is not like physical chemistry . This is not like physics .

Like there is some physics , it's sprinkled in , but this is stuff that I really could understand .

What the key is is can I show up every day , go to class and then , when I come home , you know , eat something real quick and then just review everything over and over and over and over , and after a while I was like I got this , I got this he was very good in med school .

Come on yo , you know what I'm saying ? Bad , right In Brooklyn , got an office in his , in his basement . Like who doesn't want that type of life ? Right For real , for real . So for me I was like , oh yeah , like I want to go to school and I'll be an OB doc .

But my first mentoring experience , like with an actual doctor , was a surgeon who was a trauma surgeon and I was like , oh , this life is great . Well , excuse me , what he does is great . But I said , you know what , once I get in , like let me just kind of stick to what really the inspiration that got me through here , which was OB .

So yeah , she'll tell you . I was like the first year representative for the OB guy club and then I thought I was going to go into OB like first two years , up until I did my family medicine rotation and I started doing all of these well-woman checks and I was like hell .

Yes , and actually my first gynecologist ever was , um , a male um , and I always thought I'm like , how do you guys come in and do this every day and they're still like you have a wife at home and you still go home and you still look at her the same , because you never know what you're getting that day . You don't know what the situation is .

I absolutely hated it , and not only did I hate it , I wasn't good at it . I wasn't good at it . I was better than you , you probably were . I found the medicine boring . I found it so utterly boring so that when we would sit for rounds and you know , then they would pimp the students and ask you know what ? I don't know ?

You had a fever for five days , like what is that ? I don't know ? Give him some tussin' . Yeah , boy , let that tussin' get in there , boy .

um . But I did . I struggled a lot because after that rotation , that rotation was in the summer or , excuse me , it was in the winter , was actually in the dead of winter , I think we it was like February or March and it was my third year .

At the end of your third year is really when you should be , you know , starting to look at what residency programs you're going to apply to . Well , my OB rotation was literally in what ? June ? Yeah , it was in June , which is essentially the last rotation of your third year .

So I went through all of the specialties and I was like man , the specialty I thought I was going to love , I absolutely hey , I don't want to do this . And now I don't even know what kind of doctor I want to be and I was hell bent that I did not want to do OB .

So , going into my OB rotation , I remember I used to tell him I don't know what I'm going to do , I know I'm not going to like OB , it's the last thing , I just don't know what I'm going to do and eventually got into my OB rotation After a week of that I was like , oh wow .

What I didn't realize about myself at that time was that I really liked to work with my hands , and that's what pediatrics was missing for me . It didn't allow me an opportunity to work with my hands , it didn't allow me versatility .

You know , in the day , you know so you were in the hospital pretty much all day , or if you were in clinic , you were in clinic all day and then that that was just it . But there was no surgery , there were hardly any procedures , there was nothing . And I didn't realize about myself at that time that that's what I really loved and that's what OB gave me .

And that's when I started realizing , you know , that I wanted to be an OB . But as far as integrity , man , let me tell you something .

If you are a person with integrity , you are going to have to hold on really tight to it , because there are people in medicine you know , colleagues , attendings alike who will make you question whether or not this is a profession where everyone has integrity , because not everyone does , because I have seen things , even in residency , that I'm like wow , like that

right , there is egregious .

And so you come out of the room and you're talking with you know , with your attending , to let them know what you , you know what you discussed with the patient , what your exam was , and now you start talking about the social issue that is going to prevent that patient from getting the care that they need , and the attending is like you're not their social

worker . What are you worried about that for ? Excuse me , like ? aren't I responsible for making sure that they get what they need , like . So help me out here , because we need to call the social worker to be able to do that , but you won't even empower me to do that , so I don't understand .

Maybe there may be an overzealous surgical tech or nurse who's just kind of really going out of their way to make sure that you either know how to scrub or know that you don't , you know , cause anything to be contaminated , or you know they're just in their feelings and they just want to . You know , kind of shine on someone .

Like I've gone through all three of those type of experiences where I felt really uncomfortable for those three separate things . For those three separate things . Or there's an asshole surgeon who just wants to take advantage of medical students and just pimp the hell out of them or , you know , just make them feel just extremely uncomfortable while they're there .

I've experienced all of that stuff where I've questioned like man , like can I make it in the operating room ? But I pushed on and I could always see myself actually doing the operations that I was like , oh yeah , could always see myself actually doing the operations that I was like , oh yeah , like , this is just the rite of passage at this point .

Right , I just know that in at this point , like what I'm learning from this asshole surgeon I won't ever do when I become , you know , a surgeon on my end , and then even in residency , like there's a point where you're like man , like can I actually do this on my own ?

But what you realize most , if not all residencies , they teach you all the skills that you need in order to become an extremely good surgeon . It really is up to you and I think we talked about this a couple of episodes ago , about you know how everybody in essence is 99% the same . There's just this 1% or even less than 1% . That's not a big difference .

That's what I expressed . But actually , renee made a really big point in saying actually that point , one percent is actually a really big difference . That's the stuff that matters . That's the stuff that makes the difference between you as a surgeon individually or as a doctor individually .

You know getting a patient to open up to you and tell you things that they couldn't tell any other professional , versus just being closed off and you know you're not being able to get what you need to get to offer really good care .

So there are people who look like me , there's Hispanic folk there , there's African-Americans , there's Africans , there's Caribbean , there's Native Americans all in the program . So it's just kind of more of like a okay , like we can do this . But then it's like well , can I actually learn enough to do this on my own ? That's what I went through .

Yeah , for the most part .

But , you know , the point of you wanting to be a doctor is not so that it's so intuitive that you know that you wouldn't even have to go to medical school to learn anything .

That's the point of medical school , right , is that you enter in a realm that you are completely unfamiliar with and eventually you learn the ways of the wild , right , like you , you just learn it . So you're going to be uncomfortable , you're going to feel out of place , you're going to be standing in places that you shouldn't be .

Someone's going to move you , right , you're going to touch something that you should not touch , you know , especially in the operating room , and somebody might get pissed at you and be like , oh , I just scrubbed the whole thing . Like , now we got to start all over those things . You know , those things are going to happen .

You're going to get woozy in the OR some of you , right , like my . Well , it wasn't my first surgery , but my first day of my surgery rotation , I remember I ate a huge breakfast .

It wasn't the first time I had been in surgery before , because I had done that as a pre-med , but that day I had eaten a big breakfast and I think everything just went to my stomach because as soon as , like , we started and it was great , about 10 minutes in I was like , oh , something ain't right and I had to back away .

You know , I had to back away , I was scrubbed in . I had to back away and just kind of , you know , catch myself before I passed out in the OR , and then after that I had to back away . I was scrubbed in , I had to back away and just kind of , you know , catch myself before I passed out in the OR and then after that I was fine , right .

But you have people who do like full on , pass out in the OR because they just don't like the sight of blood . And yes , if , even if you don't like the sight of blood , you can still be a doctor . So you know , just yeah .

Like you have to just kind of see it , experience it , so that when you get , you know , to the other side you're like , ah , I had to go through there to get to here , that's just part of it , right . And you have to have reps .

You have to have reps in the OR , you have to have reps in the ER , you have to have reps in family medicine , you have to have reps in peds . Like you develop all these different things that you understand where you stand at that point of your training and then go from there . That's the way I look at it , like there's no easy way to go about it .

And I think that if you tell people to like , like you know , I see a lot of people say , well , you know , don't speak until you're spoken to , or you know , just basically kind of crouch down and stuff Like . I hate that type of advice Me too , because it's just teaching you to kind of take or be .

It's teaching you to , it's setting you up to be taken advantage of .

So if someone is yelling at you or if someone is like over responding , that's usually that person's issue . Just remember that . Exactly that person's issue .

He didn't hear the beginning of the thing , but then he would blame me for whatever was said at the tail end and I'm like that's where you get it from .

But you'll notice that these same people , they're people that they will never pound on , they will never step to . So just understand that if you are in the presence of someone like that , you're probably in the presence of someone who isn't a very good person , but that has no reflection on you at all be in that person's shoes .

You can DM us at Docs Outside the Box or you can write us a nice little message on our website DocsOutsideTheBoxcom . Slash contact . How did I do ? Did .