Anatomy of a great day

Today was a great day at the end of which I feel happy, excited and content. What were the elements?
Great nights sleep, feeling like I could take my time to catch up and put things in perspective after a long week of non stop interviews, a great lunch at a new eatery with good service and excellent service, finding a new bookstore and learning a little (read a few pages of Mike kryzewskis book about the gold medal bball team), feeling like my career is going somewhere(went to a good residency dinner), talking with someone I care about(Jane) and building something exciting (working on a Tuck healthcare club event) and receiving a compliment (from the editor in chief of the A&A journal whom I interviewed with in NYC)

Anatomy of a great day

Today was a great day at the end of which I feel happy, excited and content. What were the elements?
Great nights sleep, feeling like I could take my time to catch up and put things in perspective after a long week of non stop interviews, a great lunch at a new eatery with good service and excellent service, finding a new bookstore and learning a little (read a few pages of Mike kryzewskis book about the gold medal bball team), feeling like my career is going somewhere(went to a good residency dinner), talking with someone I care about(Jane) and building something exciting (working on a Tuck healthcare club event) and receiving a compliment (from the editor in chief of the A&A journal whom I interviewed with in NYC)

Something about Tejas

I’m in a Turkish cafe in the Rice Village in Houston (apparently Rice refers to the university not the food). Just had a tasty lamb kebab plate for 9 bucks and the waiter even threw in some extra bread and yoghurt for free. The service was good and fast and friendly. It’s interesting to compare this to the rest of the populous places in the country where people complain and the service and attitudes are horrible. My parents when they visited a couple of years ago made the comment that America was no longer the beacon of progress that it once was. Perhaps there really is something to be said for a laissez faire government that is proactive about attracting business and talent to the state with pro business income tax, tort reform and a low cost of living. Maybe life in Houston would not be bad after all as it would represent a real diverse setting, low cost of living and high salaries with a growing life sciences sector driven by institutions like Baylor, MD Anderson, Rice in the setting of a pro business and pro innovation government. Well we will see how my interview goes tomorrow with the Anesthesiology department here. If only I can get overthr whole perception about being in the “hick” south.

Gluttonous thoughts on T-day

Man, I ate too much  <burp>

Seriously, I think I ate so much that I gave myself gastroesophageal reflux and couldn’t go back to sleep. Well, at least I’m not alone . . .

It turns out that the average American consumes 4500 calories on Thanksgiving day. Just to put that into context, my basal metabolic rate is 2564 kcal per day so I probably consumed close to double my basal metabolic rate yesterday.

Its crazy to think what kind of country we are in America where the day after stuffing yourself, most Americans will actually wake up early to line up to go shopping for Black Friday specials. Although I suppose you don’t even have to leave your living room anymore these days with all the internet shopping that is available.

Behavior change is definitely tough. I wonder if my latest “get thin fast” scheme is going to work. This time, I am going to try portion control while on the interview trail (smaller portions more frequency throughout the day). Who knows how that will go? Likely it will go the way of my last 90 attempts.

Economic Transition and political progress in China

We had a speaker back in January Minxin Pei from the Carnegie Endowment who offered some interesting rebuttal to the theory that economic progress will lead to democratic opening up. He argues for the political elite driven political system in which economic progress actually inhibits political progress. First he cites the
negative correlation between econ success and democratization because it legitimizes authoritarian governments. Citing the history of 70 democratized countries only 5-6 have been rich countries most have been poor.
Today China practices selective repression maintaining an elite force of 250k-500k riot police to suppress uprising and Internet police and what he calls social cooptation. This last point is very interesting that points out that China has learned from overthrow of authoritarian regimes (and Tianmen) is by social elites not by peasants so the gov is actively coopting urban intelligentsia into its ranks by maintaining a technocracy in powerful gov positions and benefits for academics. It’s pretty sad that they have been so successful using this basic principle is the more you have to lose the less you willing to shake the boat.
Question: is this sustainable? Pei doesn’t think so for several reasons. Everything depends on maintaining high rate of econ growth, corruption and inequality are key structural weaknesses and hypocrisies in the system (no inheritance tax, no unions, no capital gains tax). Authoritarian regimes cannot coopt everyone in the elite class so people will be left out and constitute new source of change. New middle class and civic activism are becoming politically active for environmental issues, corruption won’t challenge directly but will eventually show that cccp is incompetent inproviding healthcare and environment may be the entry points for Chinese society to become more empowered. He believes the change is coming in the next 10-20yrs. Very interestingly, he pointed out the vulnerabilities of China to any political transition or democratization given its imperial system of enforcing rule on Tibetans and Muslim ethnic groups that fundamentally do not want to be a part of the Chinese state. When China transitions to democracy, it will fall apart. At that point if Taiwan will break away as well and war will likely ensue.

Finally, I thought an interesting comment from the crowd was that of a professor who pointed out that industrialization has historically weakened democracies in the West as well including Europe and the US further reinforcing the thesis that economic progress does not lead to democratization. What do you think?

Life line exercise

Finally back at Tuck! Whew . . . makes me wonder why exactly I’m doing this residency thing

Speaking of introspection, I am taking a course called Leadership Out of the Box at Tuck which is about the developmental journey that leaders take where we study bios of leaders we admire as well as undergo some soul searching. Perfect class for me: high on interest and low on work!

Anyway, Prof B had us do an exercise in class where we all drew our own life lines with time on the X axis and happiness on the Y axis and noting transitions in your life where things went up or down precipitously. Mine was quite interesting. One of the key takeaways was that in my mind, I was happiest in my life when I was 12 right before my parents moved us to Taiwan. All I remember from that period was not feeling self conscious despite being a rather “portly” child, feeling self confident as I was one of the top students in my elementary school and in Jr high as well and most importantly having a lot of energy and happiness being surrounded by friends and family and having all a kid could ever want. The crazy thing is despite the other highlights in my life, I cannot say that there has ever been a period where I have been that happy with perhaps doing premed in San Francisco and being at Tuck in this fall term coming close to that.

So what does that mean? Does it mean that I was forever scarred by the move to Taiwan? Or as Dr. B would say it, is moving to Taipei a “defining” moment in my inner journey to become a hero/leader? What is clear to me is that some of my current behavior as an adult in which I prefer to be comfortable and lazy as an adult, be mothered in relationships, be mentored by father figure types relates directly to this period in my life where I was the “most” happy.  Does this mean I am forever to be defined by this moment so far in my past? Or does it mean I need to resolve some inner psychic conflict to move on? I guess that’s what the rest of this class and this life is all about.

Anyway, highly suggest doing the exercise, it may sound froofy but it actually does make you think about and visualize your life thus far a bit!

Decisions, decisions

So anesthesia it is! Like most decisions in my life, I waited till probably the last minute and took the path that as my dad says “opens up” more opportunities. Anesthesiology has a little bit of everything that I’ve liked about medicine and still gives me the opportunity to keep my hand in business. All while being a bit more lifestyle friendly than EM or medicine.

Just finished turning in my ERAS (that’s the common app service for residency programs) application so we’ll see if programs agree with me that anesthesia is the right fit!

A strange feeling

Its strange, for the first time in med school, I am feeling a strange sense of contentment and happiness these last few days on anesthesia. Part of it, I’m sure is getting out before 3pm every day which has been Sah-weet! Then again the adult anesthesiologists get out at 4p which is not bad at all either. But beyond the hours, just feeling like I have more energy (working out every day this week), confidence (intubated successfully twice today!) and curiosity (been motivated to read about 1.5 hrs each day this week). Its been really quite nice. Plus being back in NH when it is sunny and just doing my own thing has been really great. Eating when I want, sleeping when I want, having some extra time to study or work on my business. All of this has really made me quite happy . . . aaaahhhhh, anesthesia it is . . .

Morning break

This is the first time I’ve EVER hear those two words spoken to me.

Working pedi anesthesia with Dr JC today. Been amazingly relaxed but enjoyable. Makes you wonder why more people don’t do anesthesia. It’s like one part reassurance, two parts gas and meds and a healthy dose of observation and being careful. Got to intubate a couple of times and started some good ivs on the kiddos. Even got to play some candyland with one of my patients. Not bad, not bad at all . . .

So far after one day of anesthesia, I love it. The overall culture of anesthesia is great, nice people, smart, contemplative but very keyed into the need to treat the clinician right (ie not work 40 hours straight w/o sleep routinely). I also like the idea of shutting down the patient, supporting their vital functions and then starting them back up. Its totally the kind of thing I liked about critical care. Plus thinking about physiology and pharmacology, two of my fav subjects in med school is pretty nice. Finally, reassurance is a big deal in anesthesia and kind of jibes well with my personality.

Finally, I have to say that the combination of having a good day, working with good people and getting out at 3pm really energized me today. I went to the gymn, shopped and cooked dinner, even wrote in my blog! Now how is that for a medical specialty, one that adds positive energy instead of sucking it all away!

We won VCIC!!!

The Tuck team composed of four other Tuckies and myself are Venture Capital Investment Competition New England Regional Champions!

Whoo hoo!

http://www.vcic.unc.edu/