Like Mother, Like Doctor is a blog written by Linda Brodsky and her daughter, Dana Greenfield, about the journey of becoming a doctor.
Like Mother, Like Doctor »
By Linda Brodsky, MD and Dana Greenfield
Pursuing a medical career is like running a marathon. The first three principles of medical marathoning were covered in the last post. Here are the next three to help you get to the finish line.
Like Mother, Like Doctor »
By Linda Brodsky and Dana Greenfield
One of the most common concerns about becoming a doctor is how long it takes. After high school, four years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3-7 years of training, it's a long haul and requires a special kind of endurance and dedication.
Confession: Neither of us likes to run, especially not long distances. But what we do is a lot like a marathon. Six principles cover most of the ground. Here are the first three; stay tuned for the next!
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No matter how high your grades in chemistry and biology, no matter how solid your MCAT scores, no matter how many activities you join, you still might be missing the important “stuff” to become a doctor. So while you are writing your kick butt essay, think about where you are going to find the right amounts of these 6 ingredients that one needs to become a really good doctor...
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Summer’s here. I’m free from homework, essays, and classes. Now it’s just me versus this pile of reading. As I stare at the tower on my desk (and it is about to fall over), I have mixed feelings. Can I do it? Will I have the discipline? Will my eyeballs fall out? Will it feel great to blast through it all?
My Mom’s last post talked about how challenging it is “being” a doctor. For me, a medical student who also is working on a Ph.D., the question is different. I’m asking: “What’s the most challenging part of becoming a doctor?”
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What's the most challenging part of being a doctor? Talk to 10 doctors and you will get a dozen opinions on that question. You can imagine the many typical answers -- long hours, tough problems, years of schooling, residency training, too much memorization and many, many more. But whichever kind of “doc” you become, there is always one challenge: keeping up with what is new -- or, as we say in the biz, lifelong learning.
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I have to confront the realities of my chosen M.D./Ph.D. career path. After an extended medical school career, do I want to add a five- to seven-year residency training period? Can I maintain surgical competency while also pursuing anthropology? Will a life in social science work better with the flexibility of shift-work (as I would have in emergency medicine or anesthesia) or with a more rigid OR/clinic/on-call schedule? What specialty will mesh best with my social research interests? Does it matter or will I just make it work?
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Before becoming a medical student, even before applying to medical school, from the very first moment you proclaim “I want to be a doctor,” you hear the same question repeatedly. What kind of doctor do you want to be?
The simplest answer would be, “A good one. A kind one.” You might get a chuckle and perhaps some relief from prying minds, at least temporarily. But that question will quietly nag you through your long and difficult journey until it is finally decided.
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From the hospital wards to the ivory tower, I consider myself lucky to be in such rarefied places and privileged worlds that most people don’t see. And then I also feel overwhelmed by the hundreds of pages of weekly reading or the towering responsibility of my own fieldwork (which I have yet to nail down to a topic or a location). In moving from medicine to Anthropology, I stepped off the well-trodden path of clinical training into the wilds of academia. But I find solace in the incredible scholars I get to read, the stimulating lectures I get to attend, and the many cups of coffee that get me through.
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Dana’s PhD is in medical anthropology. Never heard of it? Neither had I until Dana found one of her several passions. It all started in college, at Barnard, when she took an anthropology course. She loved it. And she also loved biology. And she wanted to become a medical doctor. And she found a way to do it all.
She is becoming a medical anthropologist. She will study and advance the knowledge of the many ways in which “culture and society are organized around or impacted by issues of health, health care, and related issues.”
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Rosie Washington, our (erstwhile?) Talking Science intern, asked: “What kinds of setbacks should I be aware of and prepare for now?” Great question, Rosie! Ask a dozen people and you will get hundreds, maybe thousands of answers. Hey, Dana, you are in the middle of it, so maybe you will comment from your deeply involved, finger-on-the-pulse point of view. Here are the top 7 most difficult setbacks that I (or one of my friends) weren’t prepared for but wish we were. Some are external, some are internal. Recognize and react to lessen the negative.
