Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Swallowed up in intestines

I enjoy what I'm studying and I enjoy learning in general, so a few days ago I did one of my favorite things to do and made an amazingly organized schedule for the next 12 weeks. Since I'll be in Vancouver for about another 12 weeks, and since I have a lot of studying to do, I planned out every single day and made this big spreadsheet dividing up all the topics I needed to cover for all my courses. Each reading selection for each class is in a different color, and I wrote out all the page numbers and exactly what days and weeks I would be doing them.
It didn't take long for my world to fall apart. I realized that I had forgotten to calculate Thanksgiving, Christmas or any other holidays or days off. I also forgot to calculate in my job and my practicum. Oh well, I thought, I can just work a little faster.
This week is my week to study the gastrointestinal tract and by last night I was supposed to have made it to the rectum, but I was still at the esophagus and not progressing very quickly. Did you know that it's possible to get a stone of the salivary glands that is just like a kidney stone? Did you know that 12% of European Americans and ~100% of Native Americans are lactose intolerant and can't drink milk? Did you know that the first sign of stomach cancer spreading is an enlarged lymph node in your neck?
There are so many little peripheral things to learn that it is overwhelming and I am beginning to realize just how much my schedule might need revamping.
It's a parallel of life, really. My philosophy is sort of divide-and-conquer: I like to break things up into manageable pieces and then I feel like I have a semblance of control over them and can accomplish something. It's just an illusion, though. My color-coded schedule might help me be organized in my studies, but is it really going to help me be a better doctor? Is it going to help me be a better person?
Sometimes one can get too focused on the task at hand, that it is possible to miss all the peripheral things that are actually more important than the primary object. For example, keeping to my schedule this weekend was actually not as important as spending a bit of time with my siblings from out of town. And if I'd stuck rigidly to my readings I would have missed learning a lot of things.
I am not advocating flaking out and just doing what you want, learning what you want. But schedules need to be prepared to be shaken up a bit. I've spent a lot of my life being very disciplined about studying. But I have the feeling that 20 years from now I'll wish that I'd taken an evening off and gone to see a movie in the theater or hung out more with my sisters or slept in once in a while.
Haha. To be perfectly honest I'm actually procrastinating right now. I'm sort of discouraged that I don't know everything there is to know about the intestines. But give me time. I still have 3 more days this week!

2 comments:

Skip said...

Hopefully you've also remembered to factor in a visit to the Okanagan, when will that be btw? And where will you be going in 12 weeks?

Ian

Blagden Family Life said...

hey heather where will you going in 12 weeks time
G