October 19, 2006

• A drug by any other name…

  Got into a pseudo fight with a friend the other day. Said friend  had
  insinuated that I have loads of free time because during one of my
  study breaks, I had emailed a website I thought they might enjoy. They
  found this suspect, because when they called me while I was “in the
  zone” studying for finals, interupting my train of thought, I didn’t
  stay on the phone long, and excused myself to get back to work.

  This bothered me probably more than it should have. But then again, i came to the realization of how totally defined
  I am by my hard work. Other people are too, i suppose, but what else do
  i have to show for it? No paying job, no major source of income besides
  hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans. I can only impress
  people by my perseverance and my knowledge (and my ravishing good
  looks, let’s not forget those). So of course i was insulted;
  telling a medical student that he or she is not working hard enough is
  both  a) nowhere further from the truth and   b) insulting to one’s
  core definition (what does a med student do? study, study, study

  And
  speaking of studying, pharm is intimidating. There seems to be not just
  a mountain of information, but a veritable range full of black diamond
  courses for us would be informational alpine skiers. And that is just
  the symapthetic and parasympathetic agonists. Throw in some anti
  hypertensives and cancer drugs and all of a sudden you are leaping for
  the slopes from a plane…with no parachute…or skis.

  Okay,
  perhaps the metaphor is being carried a little far, but the point
  remains it is difficult to try and teach my brain a whole new method of
  learning and storing tables of info when it sees information and just
  says “memorize”. Yes, pharm is a memorization course, but there is far
  more information than can be held in my puny little neurons, especially
  with the beating they have been taking from other exams, good or bad.

  But
  what a good little HMO doctor i will be….when quizzing each other
  today, ritika asked me what drug should be prescribed for primary
  pulmonary hypertension. My response? ” I don’t remember the name, but
  it’s expensive” (if you were wondering it’s treprostinil @$93,000yr)

  However,
  gripe and groan though i may, the pieces of the puzzle are slowly
  beginning to come together and a picture is starting to take shape of
  how to organize it all.

  Let’s just hope i didn’t lose too many pieces under the couch to complete it.

  -J

  • 12:22 am
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