#lifeofkhan

[lifeofkhan]

It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world - in the form of bad ideas...Trout became a fanatic on the importance of ideas as causes and cures for diseases.

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

[lifeofkhan]

I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can't live without culture anymore.

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

[lifeofkhan]

If anyone had told me I would get to spend a month in Thailand during medical school, I wouldn't have believed them. Leaving Thailand feels surreal. I can't believe I won't get to to wake up tomorrow, walk down the street, and order a steaming bowl of Jok. Or get lost trying to find my way around KKU. Or meet up with the many students, residents, and faculty who helped make KKU feel like home. I'm beyond thankful for all the unforgettable memories.

My elective month at KKU has given me a new appreciation for the power of non verbal communication in a medical setting. Being unable to communicate verbally forces you to focus on body language that we often miss during patient interactions. The subtle cues that signal discomfort, pain, and even fear. The sigh of relief and smile of appreciation. You realize that human emotions transcend language.

Nothing can do justice to the sights, culture, and people I've had the opportunity to work and experience with in Thailand, but hopefully this video gives a glimpse into the reasons why I'm looking forward to returning to KKU one day.

ขอบคุณค่ะ

[shyinadarkplace]

Am I the only one who cried through that whole movie ?

“My name is Suleyman. My mother is a writer, my father is a teacher, and my sisters always fight each other. One day I found a toy on the street. I picked it up. It exploded. I don’t remember what happened after that, because it was the end.”

The Breadwinner, Deborah Ellis

[lifeofkhan]

1st Interview

Made an attending tearful during my first interview for general surgery... Something like this would happen to me, of course. No less on my first interview.

[lifeofkhan]

When you realize you’ve made the right decision. Now to finish ERAS.

[lifeofkhan]

Title: Student in State of Perpetual Angst Here we have a 4th year med student in his natural environment. Phone in hand, jumping at every sound his phone makes. Heart rate soaring as he opens his email. The anticipation building. Sweat trickling down his scalp. And at the height of his excitement, the email opens to show nothing more than a confirmation of his application being received. Such is life.

[lifeofkhan]

Palliative Care: it's what medicine can offer when we can't offer a cure.

Anesthesiologist Turned Palliative Care Doc

[lifeofkhan]

Turmoil

The last few months have been filled with indecision and doubts about medicine. Not in the, I don’t want to medicine anymore way, but more so in the I’m here now and I don’t remember what my end goal was/is. I’ve felt like a ball of uncertainty who has receded away into the depths of  some cavern where all other aspects of my life have been blacked out and the one thing illuminated by my headlamp is my uncertainty of where to go next from here. 

As a medical student, life has been pretty straight forward, until now. Applied to college. Got into college. Be a class A pre-med. Apply for Medical School. Get interviews. Match. Graduate College. Enjoy the last summer of freedom. Start medical school. Most everyone follows some slight variation of this path, and if you happen to have taken a more nontraditional path, I’m slightly envious right now because I so wish I had.

With residency applications looming comes commitment. Commitment to a specialty and a certain way of life. For the past six months I’ve been having an existential life crisis choosing between General Surgery and Emergency Medicine. I started MS3 year with no intention of pursuing surgery. I purposefully put my surgery rotation as my first to get it out of they way. And then. I fell in love with it. I had no semblance of time for those two months. But I loved it. I didn’t minding waking up at 3 am to go pre-round. Level 1 trauma at 2 am? Let’s do it! 

I had an attending tell me I should only do general surgery if I wanted child care issues and multiple divorces in my future. I proceeded to write him a thank you card for the amazing time I had on his service and saying that, even though I may be a naive medical student, I have every right to believe things will work out in the end regardless of what field I ended up choosing. It’s all a matter of perspective. In hindsight, I realized one, I should have probably taken a day or two to reread the card before I actually gave it to him, and two, that this is what it means to be jaded (or he was giving me a reality check). It caught me by surprise when he said those words because of how much he enjoyed being in the operating room. He always had so much energy. It must have affected me on a subconscious level though because after that point the conflicting thoughts began. 

As I sit now, wondering why I let the decision between Emergency medicine and General Surgery take over so much of my life, I realize it’s because I’ve never really sat down or concretely voiced what I truly want from the future. We all have expectations. We all have a certain reality we want to fulfill. As medical students, we are some of the most risk averse humans on this planet and thus cannot imagine leaving things to work out as they will. It’s crazy. My motto has always been that things will work out for the best. Yet here I am. Excruciatingly examining this life decision to the point everything else in life has ceased to exist and provide joy. I had a friend tell me that I don’t laugh as much anymore when I talk to him anymore. 

The reality of the situation hit me then. 

It wasn’t worth it. 

Everything will end up working out for the best in the end. Even if I end up taking an unexpected route. As my mentor says, we become obsessed with following a certain path in life, sometimes for the wrong reasons, and it becomes debilitating. The reality of the matter is we’ll never be able to predict what’s coming our way no matter how much we try to control our path. 

[lifeofkhan]

The best medication is the one the patient can and will take.

Psychiatry Resident 

[lifeofkhan]

It's poor form to kill your patient.

Psychiatry Resident 

[lifeofkhan]

I believe that our inability to sustain our aspirations come from the fact or exists because we have this focus on changing the externals or trying to change things from the outside in when actually what's required is  a change from within, a change from the invisible world, the internal. The Bhagavad Gita says that when we focus on a deeper motive or a higher purpose or deeper meaning in life, actually then we can affect and impact the outer space. Simon Sinek says that when we understand why we want to do something we can inspire effective change as opposed to when we just know what we want to do. It was Gandhi who told us that we find ourselves when we lose ourselves in the service of others. Who you spend time with determines what you dream about, what you collide with. It's almost that your scope enhances when you spend time with advanced beings who help you find meaning in the seemingly uneven situations of your life. It's extraordinary how changing your life starts with by changing your circle. Ringo Starr once sang, "You can get high with a little help from your friends," well the Bhagavad Gita says you can get higher with a little help from your friends. It's amazing when you immerse yourself in positivity, encapsulate and engross yourself in a expansive energy that can transport you to a new place when you spend time with people who amplify your inner potential and not your external infirmities and insecurities. As human beings we have this fascination with the end. We always want to know what happens at the end of a book , we want to know what happens at the end of a movie. We remember the last time but not the many in-between and therefore we have this tendency to focus on the results and not really focus on the course or the method or the journey. It's amazing, the Bhagavad Gita talks about how we should focus on the journey and not on the result and actually we should focus on the transformational period and find joy and seek joy in the actual process rather than actually waiting for what's coming. It was Leo Tolstoy who said the changes in our lives must come from the impossibility to liver otherwise rather than just a mental resolution  to want a new life. You can never take the world higher than where you visited internally. And just remember, it's not about how slow you go, just as long as you don't stop.

Jay Shetty

[lifeofkhan]

Je sais, je sais que je sais jamais: I know, I know that I never know."

Chef Jean-Pierre Philipe

[lifeofkhan]

It’s extraordinary how changing your life starts with by changing your circle. Ringo Starr once sang, “You can get high with a little help from your friends,” well the Bhagavad Gita says you can get higher with a little help from your friends. It’s amazing when you immerse yourself in positivity, encapsulate and engross yourself in a expansive energy that can transport you to a new place when you spend time with people who amplify your inner potential and not your external infirmities and insecurities.

Jay Shetty

[lifeofkhan]

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

Leo Tolstoy

[lifeofkhan]

When we understand why we want to do something we can inspire effective change as opposed to when we just know what we want to do.

Simon Sinek