Bond. James Bond. James F. Bond? Ok maybe it's under something else.

The life of a secret agent is probably a lot more dealing with front desk clerks than shooting people.

"I believe there's a package for me under the name 'Frank Wilson'"
"Ok what kind of package?"
"Um, a package with some stuff in it.  It's under the name 'Frank Wilson', here's my ID and Passport"
"Great, thanks, what kind of package is it? Big? Small? Envelope?"
"Let's say smallish. Maybe heavy.  Or maybe it just has papers in it.  I'm not really sure."
"Who sent it?"
"Um, I'm not actually sure."
"Well what's the return address on it, that's what I'm really asking"
"I...don't really know."
"Well can you check a tracking number, or call the person who maybe sent it, or check an email?"
"No, not really, that was all destroyed."
"Ok, so smallish, maybe heavy package with an unknown return address and the name, 'Frank Wilson' on it.  I'll just go to the back and look through the 300 pieces of mail we receive a day at this depot and see if I can't find it.  Do you have 3 hours?  Also there is a guy in a suit standing behind you who keeps telling me to go ahead into the back, I think he wants to talk to you."

Orwellian anatomy: 198Four ligaments in the knee

I wish textbooks were as interesting as pleasure reading books.  Like I wish Orwell wrote my anatomy text.  It would be like, "the sun poured in through the window and landed gently on her scapula, which is attached to the Manubrium at the sternoclavicular joint, the subtlest of joints."

Step 18 of becoming a doctor, wade through the bullshit

I'm interviewing for residency right now and it's a bizarre process.  I'm applying into neurosurgery and surprise! it is a 7 year, "88" hours a week, 5am to 8pm on an easy day, work your ass off residency.  Turns out people want neurosurgeons to train kinda hard like.

So going through this interview process is a strange trip.  On the one hand, most good applicants get a program in their top 3 choices.  That's pretty comforting.  In fact, by far the most common scenario is to get your number 1 choice.  And more than that, most people like their home institution and their home institution has interviewed them for the 4 years of med school (particularly in neurosurgery where people start from day 1 walking around introducing themselves as, "Hi, I'm JohnI'mgoingtobeaneurosurgeon, what's your name?"), so it's sort of clear that it's a mutually beneficial situation and a bit of a lock.

However, there are political games galore, lying, applied game theory, and tons of horror stories of the "locks" at Home Institution University ending up at Third Best State School in the Region University.  So everyone gets very nervous, no matter how good an applicant and develops a self destructive habit like alcohol abuse or watching Whitney.

A common question at this point is, "well what's wrong with Third Best State School in the Region University, won't you still be a neurosurgeon".  Yes, and likely a well trained one.  Still, 7 years, working that hard with 7 to 21 other people (most programs take 1-3 residents a year) is just not a flippant choice.  It's like trying to pick the best prison for you.  Which penitentiary has the coolest inmates?  Who's the best Warden? Where do they give you the most time for arts and crafts, but still enough time to read?  How much outdoors time do you really get?  You can't switch residencies (or rarely) and you can't speed it up.  At the end of the day, we will all be rehabilitated and ready to re-enter society, but you still want the best prison possible.

Let the games begin!

Let's smoke pot and play computer games

There are some words that are just about impossible to say cooley (like, "cooley").

Try to talk about marijuana and sound cool.

"We are going to go smoke some pot".  Thanks for the update, Baby-boomer.  Let me know how groovy it is and if you guys are going to the Simon and Garfunkel concert later.

"Those guys are going to eat weed brownies".  I hope they get a glass of milk with those and don't stay up too late watching Animaniacs, they have a big homework assignment due at the end of the week.

Using a desktop is another one.

"Let me just write this down on my PC".  Oh right, take whatever time you need to write on your "Personal Computer".  Do you think you can get me a copy with your Dot Matrix Printer, or better yet, Fax it to me.

"I have a desktop".  Cool dude, can't wait to come over and play computer games.  Should I bring a joystick so we can both play Civilization or SimCity 2000?

I've just started saying, "I don't have a mac".  That basically answers people's questions.

So you want to get into med school...

I often get asked how med school and residency works.  It's not really clear or intuitive and most people get their information from extremely accurate TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs.  As someone who finally understands it, and I can assure you I did not until probably this year, let me do a bit of explaining.

For pre-med, I've given a decent explanation here, so I'll leave it alone.  I'll move on to first year.  This year is all about minutia.  It has been said that you spend the first year learning a language, and that is more or less accurate.  Particularly first year, your life is to learn basic science, basic science related to medicine.  This is like getting hired as a lawyer and then being asked to spend a year learning how books get made.  You learn new fancy words, with no idea how to use them or what they really mean.  You hear about things that sound important, but don't really exist.  The kind of thing where your attending* sees primary syphilis and is like, "It does exist!", and he's been doing it since the pre-antibiotic era. You definitely learn a lot, but it's mostly useless or won't stick. The major utility of this year is to drink and hook up with your classmates.

The summer between 1st and 2nd year is the only summer med students get.  This is a hard concept to understand for the rest of the working world, who assumes school is school and schooooooooool's out.for.summa! It's not.  And most people work this summer, doing research.  Lawyers get paid around 30,000 for the summer.  We get paid around 3,000.  If you have a good grant.  Again, a good time to drink and sit by a pool and regret hooking up with your classmates.

Year 2.  This is pretty much the same, but they get your ready for the wards**.  You do things like see standardized patients; paid actors who pretend to be sick and then give you feedback afterward that is always the same, one good thing, one bad thing, and "how do you think it went?"  "I think it went about as well as it could go considering you aren't sick and I've seen you tending bar at The Back Saloon.  We were both there last night.  Didn't have a bum knee then, did you?".  We learn physical exam, interviewing skills, basically all of the stuff that teaches you how to diagnose the fact that you need to order a cat scan.

At the end of this year, you take Step 1. This is the MCAT for residencies and is a super painful test.  More about it here.

More on year 3 and 4.

*Note: An attending is the head doctor (Dr. Cox, if you will) who runs the show, makes final decisions, and pimps the shit out of you.
**Note: The wards is the name for actually being in the hospital.  Clinics is a synonym.