End of the Road?
I think this blog in its current form is going to come to and end sometime soon. We had a talk last week about medical malpractice and professionalism which made me realize how potentially stupid having a blog like this can be. I mean the last thing I want after a poor outcome on a case is to have an 8 foot blow-up poster hanging up in front of a jury with a screenshot of this blog detailing how obvious it is that I hate fat people, or that I'm sexist, racist, homophobic or something of that nature. At which point in my defense I'll stand up and yell out, "that's not me, that's some dude named GerLad!"
Which means that this blog eventually needs to come to an end. I say too many stupid insensitive things in here and I need to start a phase out period soon to let things slowly disappear from the long reach of internet search engine caches.
As much as I enjoy this little creative hobby of mine, the risk probably isn't worth it. Every residency program and admissions committee likes to google people these days and the last thing I need is to get further screwed in a match ranklist because I aired some stupid laundry thoughts online.
The other alternative would be to erase all of my old entries and make this blog totally PC but that would make it totally boring. Not to you, my faithful 3 readers... you doubtlessly already think this blog is boring and so nothing would change. But it would make it unbearably boring for me and I write with the main goal of entertaining myself. And I gotta keep it real.
Besides, what do I get out of this blog? A sympathy comment here and there. An adsense click every week or so, probably the majority of which are from myself. My suspectedly hot new jersy reader won't even identify herself. Bitch. Really this blog is just an egotistical exercise I use to broadcast anger, glorify stupid thoughts, kiss my own ass and send subliminal updates to my best friend I never talk to. And procrastination. Seriously. Get a life, gerlad.
And so I will probably update a few more times or so and then stop, coinciding with the end of my preclinical education (WOOOOOOOOOOFREAKINGHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!) I know 3rd year I will not be able to resist the urge to violate all kinds of HIPAA rules and talk smack about weird cases and irritating superiors and coworkers so that'll be good for me and besides I'll probably be too busy anyways.
...
In other news I witnessed an autopsy yesterday, so mark another check off the checklist of interesting things to witness/do. It was boring more than anything, and then stinky once they opened up the stomach. Not that it wasn't interesting in parts, it's just such a low yield experience because it goes so slowly. Much like anatomy dissections.
I understand the arguments for conducting these things but honestly I can't see myself ever trying to advocate for one of these to a family member of a patient. Why, for peace of mind? Maybe for extremely complicated cases. To add to an epidemiology statistic? It's just striking to me how casually they toss and mangle and drag the bodies around, by the head or whatever's convenient. I'm no religious nut but it all seems so unnecessarily brutal. I finally understand the meaning of "currant jelly" though.
I probably would have a much different opinion altogether if they had just played some decent music on the boombox.
One thing that really struck me was just looking at the face of the dead person and realizing that this person had been alive just hours ago. And now the life was just... gone. And despite the eviscerated abdomen, the face looked so real, so human. You almost expected the eyes to open again and the person to start telling you a their life story. Very sad and disturbing.
I had a similar moment of reflection once during my neuroanatomy practical exam, staring at a brain with a pin through a temporal lobe gyrus, thinking how every miniature wrinkle and axon in front of my fingers once held part of a thought or experience or memory. That if we were smart enough, there'd be a life and a story there we'd be able to decode. It was a very deep moment of reflection. And then the buzzer sounded and ruined it and I had to move on to the next station.
Moral of the story- pathologists are creepy freakin weirdos.
Which means that this blog eventually needs to come to an end. I say too many stupid insensitive things in here and I need to start a phase out period soon to let things slowly disappear from the long reach of internet search engine caches.
As much as I enjoy this little creative hobby of mine, the risk probably isn't worth it. Every residency program and admissions committee likes to google people these days and the last thing I need is to get further screwed in a match ranklist because I aired some stupid laundry thoughts online.
The other alternative would be to erase all of my old entries and make this blog totally PC but that would make it totally boring. Not to you, my faithful 3 readers... you doubtlessly already think this blog is boring and so nothing would change. But it would make it unbearably boring for me and I write with the main goal of entertaining myself. And I gotta keep it real.
Besides, what do I get out of this blog? A sympathy comment here and there. An adsense click every week or so, probably the majority of which are from myself. My suspectedly hot new jersy reader won't even identify herself. Bitch. Really this blog is just an egotistical exercise I use to broadcast anger, glorify stupid thoughts, kiss my own ass and send subliminal updates to my best friend I never talk to. And procrastination. Seriously. Get a life, gerlad.
And so I will probably update a few more times or so and then stop, coinciding with the end of my preclinical education (WOOOOOOOOOOFREAKINGHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!) I know 3rd year I will not be able to resist the urge to violate all kinds of HIPAA rules and talk smack about weird cases and irritating superiors and coworkers so that'll be good for me and besides I'll probably be too busy anyways.
...
In other news I witnessed an autopsy yesterday, so mark another check off the checklist of interesting things to witness/do. It was boring more than anything, and then stinky once they opened up the stomach. Not that it wasn't interesting in parts, it's just such a low yield experience because it goes so slowly. Much like anatomy dissections.
I understand the arguments for conducting these things but honestly I can't see myself ever trying to advocate for one of these to a family member of a patient. Why, for peace of mind? Maybe for extremely complicated cases. To add to an epidemiology statistic? It's just striking to me how casually they toss and mangle and drag the bodies around, by the head or whatever's convenient. I'm no religious nut but it all seems so unnecessarily brutal. I finally understand the meaning of "currant jelly" though.
I probably would have a much different opinion altogether if they had just played some decent music on the boombox.
One thing that really struck me was just looking at the face of the dead person and realizing that this person had been alive just hours ago. And now the life was just... gone. And despite the eviscerated abdomen, the face looked so real, so human. You almost expected the eyes to open again and the person to start telling you a their life story. Very sad and disturbing.
I had a similar moment of reflection once during my neuroanatomy practical exam, staring at a brain with a pin through a temporal lobe gyrus, thinking how every miniature wrinkle and axon in front of my fingers once held part of a thought or experience or memory. That if we were smart enough, there'd be a life and a story there we'd be able to decode. It was a very deep moment of reflection. And then the buzzer sounded and ruined it and I had to move on to the next station.
Moral of the story- pathologists are creepy freakin weirdos.
posted by Gerlad at
7:38 PM
3 Comments
