Just a Week Away

In less than a week, I will officially be what’s known as an MS1 – that’s Medical Student (year 1). I was talking to a friend at LACA just the other day and trying to relay to him that time has passed quickly, but I can still feel the pain of “the waiting.”

If you know me well, you know that the decision to go to medical school is one that I’ve struggled with for a long time. Truth be told, I still struggle with it. I know I will be a good doctor, one who cares about his patients and does what’s in their best interest. The thing that concerns me the most has remained the same through the years, “Can I be a good friend and family man at the same time?”

I’ve decided, for better or worse, that I will never know until try. I have real hope that this is possible, mostly because I’ve seen a few other physicians do it, specifically a small town surgeon and dear friend of my family, Pat Greer. In his unending modesty, he would say I am exaggerating – but he would be the only one. I don’t imagine he’s perfect, but, in his ability to balance his love and care for his patients with the love and care he shows his family and friends, he comes as close as anyone I have ever known.

For the past few months I’ve been bombarded with the question, “are you nervous or excited.” The answer, of course, is both. I’m ready to get started. I’m ready to step into the unknown and dig into the course material. But my concern remains in many forms: debt, time, discipline – all of these are things that can, in the name of patient care, distract me from being a good friend and family member. So, I suppose I excited about school, and nervous about its potential fallout.

In related news, I plan to frequent this space a bit more in an effort to stay connected. It worked wonderfully when Jeanna and I traveled to Central America a few years ago, and while I cherish the things we wrote while we were there, I cherish the things that our friends and family wrote much, much more – so please, comment away on this and all future posts. I’m no doctor, but I know it is good for my soul.

Image courtesy of flickr user laffy4k

Ira Glass on Good Taste

Ira Glass, Peabody Award winner and host of Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life, talks candidly about what it takes to become good at just about anything – practice. In it he defines the disparity that creative folks initially have between their tastes and their abilities. And he encourages them to keep moving forward in order to, eventually, meet the standards of their taste.

What’s interesting to me is that I know that practice pays off. For some reason I’ve just never attached that knowledge to creativity – even though all the clues were there. A brilliant artist and friend of mine says that he can teach anyone to draw. In essence, he’s saying the same thing. “If you want to practice, you can be good.” I suppose the struggle – for me anyway – is determining which things I really want to be good at. Because there simply isn’t enough time to practice them all.

Jeanna and I had the pleasure of seeing Ira Glass at the Tennessee Theatre in 2007 and I finished this short video with the same feeling I had when we saw him on stage – hopeful, inspired, & creative.