Doctor GrubHub

Sometimes I drive around with the GrubHub app on and feel the urge to snap a few pictures of the scenery. I roam the city wide with the radio scratching its mystical fuzz as I scan the stations according to mood. Mine is an older car, without satellite radio or bluetooth connectivity, so the choices consist of AM and FM. I could play a cassette if so inclined; or set it to a hollow white noise synced to the electroencephalographic-equivalent beta waves of my unsettled brain. I’m being presumptuous: often while driving my brain activity, like tranquil beach waves coming and going, rests at a rhythmic, relaxing alpha pattern. And so it goes on, until I find NPR.  NPR can be a hit-or-miss. I enjoy their interviews and shows like This American Life, Radiolab, or the Moth Radio Hour. But when they cover controversial political issues, I recede into my shell like a startled turtle. Mostly, I eschew political coverage from any source, as it tends to bitterly divide people a...

Every morning, I wake up, make coffee, and forage through the great thicket of the internet in search of residency vacancies. The internet or 'web,' as you know, expands continuously just as the universe, and with it arise visions of alternate realties somewhere pleasantly distant and unmoored in the daily rut of routine. Navigating it requires skill and experience and I admit to possessing neither. However, I've built a steady habit of scouring specific websites in my search for residencies. When I come upon a position I like, I deploy the residency application algorithm now updated into my brain's latest software - it's an app - and switch the 'application mode' tab to 'on.' Hereafter the process is automatic - CV, diploma, dean's letter, transcript, and USMLE files are sent, along with a specifically crafted statement of interest. An e-mail is fashioned for each program director or coordinator with the attachment of aforementioned files, and o...

 Out of sheer luck, I have had a few interviews over the past couple of months ranging from video calls to the formality of on-site visits. I apply broadly within the large domain of surgery and its subspecialties, as "beggars can't be choosers," an oft-repeated phrase I utter like a mantra in times of insecurity about my current station in life. The most recent of interviews took place on-site at a University medical center. Six of us were selected to vie for a PGY-1 vacancy for a subspecialty surgical position, wherein the previously matched applicant had decided that surgery was not right for him. (This was a wise choice, as Surgery demands everything, will take your blood and soul, and if you harbor any doubts, then consider all your questions answered. Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, but I've heard this said by other surgeons throughout my education and training and am merely repeating the gist of what they said.) I drove 5 hours on a cold gray morn...

I've been away from Medicine and Surgery for a couple of years, addressing health issues, for the most part. Now that my health is restored, I view the world with renewed optimism and am itching to return to my first love, practicing as a physician. I had completed two years of a surgical subspecialty residency which I enjoyed immensely before taking an indefinite medical leave, and eventually my time for returning to the position expired. My approach to The Return has been twofold: Stay busy with work - i.e. GrubHub - as well as fitness, running, and reading for pleasure. Also, when I read, I'm astounded by the gaps in my fund of general knowledge about the world and seek always to remedy it, only to find the gaps expand the more I read. Monitor residency vacancies through several online platforms, including inforesidency , ResidentSwap , FindAResident by AAMC, StudentDoctorNetwork , and a few other specialized sites.  This approach has yielded little as of yet, and ...

This is a personal site about my journey - at times embattled, others triumphant - in Medicine, my genuine calling. 'Calling' might sound trite or overused, but Medicine, and specifically Surgery, has given transcendent purpose to my life. Upon graduation from medical school, we recited the Declaration of Geneva, a modern variant of the Hippocratic Oath, and I have internalized the principles therein so that they are inextricable from my core essence as a human being, so that they seep from my pores. The primacy of curiously, conscientiously, and compassionately serving patients as a physician remains my highest aim, and I intend to restore my position in Medicine by re-entering a residency to fulfill that duty. Right now, I work as as GrubHub delivery driver. I take pride in the work. It is honest work. I am intensely grateful to the GrubHub Corporation and its Founders for allowing me to do it. I was in residency once but left for health reasons. As I seek a return to the...