Hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful Christmas! I now leave you with my favorite Christmas carol.

"Low calorie" birthday cupcakes. Hah.

I’m glad that both my teams, the Texans and Saints, won their respective games on Sunday. I’m glad I’ve survived rotations so far. I’m glad for the friends who have stuck by me. One year from now, I’ll be done with my USMLE Step 1, core rotations, and several electives. Residency applications will be in, and I’ll *hopefully* get some early interview love too.

Wish I had something more exciting to write about, but frankly, I don’t.

The fine is already paid, but I’d be interested to know how many people have received similar citations.

In spite of one man’s demise, maybe this will be an excuse for the international economy to turn around and for American patriotism to flourish. I think one of the most exciting things about being at the Veterans Affairs hospital is having had the chance to see how retired members of our armed forces celebrated on Monday morning. Let’s just say that their words of joy are inappropriate to restate.

President Obama dazzled audiences with his humor at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and now has the demise of Bin Laden attributed to his administration – between humiliating Donald Trump and current lack of a well-supported GOP contender, things are looking good for his reelection in 2012. What do you think?

As far as content goes, I swept through all my posts and privatized any which I felt could be considered even remotely offensive. Keep in mind that I started blogging over five years ago, and a lot of the opinions I had then have been drastically molded by my experiences in college and medical school. I honestly don’t have the drive to go through each of those posts one-by-one and make the necessary corrections, so hiding them from public view is my easiest option.

I’m pretty sure people can’t get offended by posts about my experiences in medical school… unless I just overall suck at life… which is a likely possibility.

As always, thanks to everyone who drops in from time to time to explore my tiny corner of the Internet.

As far as reflecting on the past year, I suppose one could read all my MS1 posts since that’s where most of my time went, but as a person, it’s hard to capture how I’ve regressed with mere words. The last year has been very humbling, but in all honesty, a bit depressing as I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m average in every conceivable regard. It’s great to have classmates who make me look like dirt – gives me a mark to work towards and a sense of awe that these are my colleagues. But in the grand scheme of things, I have a greed for self-improvement. Getting smarter, getting stronger, getting to be less socially awkward and more confident… these are some of my goals for the coming year. We’ll see how far I get.

Information technology would have offered an endless supply of projects to utilize mathematical thinking in a computer-intense lifestyle. I could have worked from home. I’d have better hours. My responsibilities would be different since lives wouldn’t be hanging in the balance. Plus, the corporate ladder is always fun to scale up.

So why medicine? Here’s my *abbreviated* explanation:

We’re living in an information era filled to the brim with emphasizing technology – improving it, utilizing it, applying it in fields we never thought possible. Consequently, I don’t have to “give up” technology to be a physician as it goes hand-in-hand with the future of medicine. Those with a firm understanding of technological do’s and don’t have a substantial edge in adapting to new medical procedures, treatments, etc. Coupled with a business background, I see myself designing the software and instrumentation, marketing it, and then implementing it in the operating room in a “bench to bedside” approach to neurological therapy. This would be the ideal unification of everything I enjoy doing – an opportunity that only medicine, not IT nor business, could provide.

Finally, there are countless others who would gladly take my spot at Baylor Med and in the Texas Medical Center without any “plan B” like IT. For their sake as well as the health of my future patients, I’m humbled by this privilege and intend to make the most of it.

I’m beginning to think otherwise.

I’ve started becoming familiar with a few of my classmates’ interests and life experiences outside of medicine, and I’m just blown away. A part of me thinks that I have nothing to contribute to this class in terms of useful skills. Another part of me hopes that my real talents have not been realized yet. The latter is definitely some wishful thinking.

The truth is, I’m at home in the operating room. No distractions. No competition. No having to listen to other people whine about professors, lectures, and medical school. Just me, the surgeon, the patient, and the clinical team. It’s almost as if the events which follow are pre-ordained every time. A laminectomy? I know exactly how it’ll play out minute to minute. A supraorbital keyhole craniotomy? I can already visualize the potential complications associated with the region.

I hope that flying under the radar is something I should be doing at this point, but I know it’s not conducive to landing a spot in neurosurgery. At the same time, I don’t intend on filling my CV with superfluous lists of achievements in place of meaningful experiences.

If there were only a way to quantify my ability to be efficient… to showcase what I’ve done by assimilating business with technology… to verbalize what I intend to do for microsurgery… then maybe I wouldn’t feel so inadequate. I’d feel like I have a tangible accomplishment (and a niche associated with it).

Oh well, in the end, I’m still lucky to have the priceless friendship of many of my classmates… many of whom have a right to be arrogant but opt for humility instead.

• From January to the end of July, I did pretty much nothing. In fact, the most difficult decisions I had each day were:
  • What am I going to eat?
  • What video game(s) should I play?
  • How many times will I go to the gym?
  • How late will I wake up the next morning?

Talk about a life of leisure! I did enjoy some time in Hawaii with the family, but for the most part, I relished the freedom to do nothing.

• Since August, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know my amazing classmates at Baylor Med, some astounding physicians around the community, and aspiring pre-med students.
• I made a killing in the stock market with Ford and Apple. Probably the only time I’ll ever invest in an American auto company, because I sure as heck won’t be buying any of their vehicles.
• Stuck to my New Year’s resolution from last year by not eating at Taco Bell (lame, but I still stuck to it).

As far as blogging goes, I wrote 236 posts (counting this one) in 2009. That’s an average of one post every 36 hours (most likely because I had so much free time from January to July). Now that school is in full swing, more of my posts will be about my experiences in medical school… and not much else.

2010 will be an incredibly challenging but rewarding time as I’ll be working to complete the last 12 months of pre-clinicals. Really looking forward to it!

Hope everyone has a fantastic start to the new year!

Many of my classmates finally had the opportunity to go back home and visit their family/friends, but as a commuter from home, that’s a daily occurrence for me. Probably why winter breaks seem to be more focused on “doing what I always do when I have free time” rather than warm, fuzzy moments with the family.

I just love seeing everyone so cheery this time of the year.