Booker T and the MGs

Working on these medical school applications is grueling work. I’ve only been at it for a few days since my family departed South Africa (we all had a wonderful time), but I already feel like I’m hitting the wall. The application process is really starting to pick up speed, however. Most of my recommendations have been distributed to the schools I’m applying to, and I’ve already received my first rejection letter. Don’t feel too bad; it was a public university in a state that puts high priority on residency. Although growing up in Seattle, Washington would have been fun, I didn’t. Also: I fully recognize that this is going to be the first of many rejection letters to be sent my way in the coming months. That’s just how this process works.

While I wasn’t actively working on applying while my family was around, I was doing a whole mess of relevant reading: Atul Gawande’s new book, Better, Tracy Kidder’s bio of Paul Farmer and his Partners In Health organization, Mountains Beyond Mountains, and Jerome Groopman’s, How Doctors Think. I highly recommend the first two, but worry that Dr. Groopman – while providing valuable insight about the cognitive traps that doctors can fall into when missing the correct diagnosis for patients –
comes off a bit pompous at times during his book.

The Paul Farmer biography tells an absolutely amazing story of a quirky and extraordinarily dedicated physician who was unwilling to allow his adopted patients in the poorest areas in the world to fall victim to heavy disease burden unfairly foisted on them by Structural Inequalities (one of Farmer’s many invented phrases to describe his anthropological and public health observations) that the most developed countries have historically demonstrated little or no interest in curbing. These Structural Inequalities continue to fuel epidemics in all societies, laying plain for everyone around the world the relationship between disease and social and economic development. But with Dr. Farmer’s influence, it seems, these issues have started to become more central points in important policy discussions about the most effective responses to pandemics around the world.

And Atul Gawande’s second book was an absolute pleasure, as expected. He has such an fantastic way of talking about important health and medicine issues through the stories of his patients, or, often, the patients of his colleagues. The narratives are usually fairly simple, if full of detailed doctorly description, but the themes that he brings out are poignant reflections of many of the most important issues being addressed by physicians and policy makers today. He also knows how to be self-effacing, when appropriate, which earns him points in my book.

Alright, I’m done with the book report. Now that I’m in writing mode and bored of working on these apps, maybe you’ll actually hear from me a bit more on this thing. It was a good way to help keep me going for my first 5 or 6 months here; I might as well try to finish strong. Hope you haven’t been losing too much sleep over my radio silence, but I’m trying over here. Holler.