Purgatory would not be an appropriate comparison of the last four years. If anything, the stress, confusion, mental health escapades have lead me to realize that subtle things are missing in my understanding of how medicine fits in my life. So far, most of the things that I understand have been painted black and white, it is or it isn't, and ( Read more... )

Emergency Medicine went by without the usual drama. I am surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did during the rotation and how little clinically, I know about illness. Some of these doctors can look at a person and know what's ailing them. I unfortunately, cannot, but it's interesting how much you know by the them you leave the service ( Read more... )

Strangely enough, after traveling three thousand miles, I find myself alone in the room I used to live in. Mom and Dad are out some place in Los Angeles, probably around SGV. Brother went for a run and sister's back at school. There's a quiet that lays thick and heavy. For some reason I feel like this time around everything's going to be all ( Read more... )

Being a doctor isn't easy. No, I'm not sure why, but I am pretty convinced I cannot be a surgeon. It's not the skill that turns me off, nor the blood, nor the abuse. I do not like the hours, the time spent away from family, the conferences, and the time away from my life ( Read more... )

It's not often that I actually get a chance to write when I want and about things that I want. So, indirectly, my writing suffers a great deal. I keep wanting to write more poetry, but I am held back by both a lack of wit and even skills with the English language. Not bad for some Asian American guy who faked his way through English (I'm joking ( Read more... )

Understanding how systems work is integral to learning to excel within the system. Medicine and the healthcare system is no different. I am starting to see how patients work the system, how nurses, PA, and other healthcare workers fit into a rather efficient and often dehumanizing system ( Read more... )

I am sitting on the seventy forty five to Penn Station. I am wondering if there is any one else sitting on this car with me. One of the conductors walked next to me on this empty car near the twilight of summer. Days feel dramatically shorter now. Talk has moved past the heat waves the wash long island over like a fleece blanket on fire, now ( Read more... )

The Korean Students that helped us when I was in Korea last summer finally left.  I had not had a chance to write about them, but my buddy from last summer came to hang.  Her name is Ah-Young and we had a ball.  It was strange to show them how New York was compared to what they were used to in Suwon.  The two places are simply hard to compare since ( Read more... )

Death of a Surgeon, Death of a Friend

Published: April 5, 1998
Regarding ''The Death of a Brilliant Surgeon Who Lived in the Fast Lane'' [March 29]:

When I received a careless diagnosis of lung cancer in August 1994, I called every phone number in the Manhattan directory for information that would tell me I could be helped and maybe even cured ( Read more... )

I emerge unchanged from the last two years of didactic learning in medical school, I declared talking to Soc the other day.  You think that at our ages, he being five years my senior, we'd be different people at the end of one of the most demanding and strenuous educations in the world.  However, we ended up as regular people, just trying to get ( Read more... )