Tag: Medicine
Jeff Bezos’ Guide To Quitting Medicine
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. — Bronnie Ware, Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying
When it comes to the decision to quit Medicine…it is going to hurt a lot.
This isn’t going to be a “sharp scratch”.
The moment you tell your parents or guardians or society that you don’t want to follow the plan you’d previously agreed to…the one they’ve helped you pursue your whole life…there’s going to be conflict.
Painful conflict.
And a brutal emotional and psychological battle between their expectations and your exasperations.
This is going to hurt a lot, particularly since it involves people you love.
But as painful as this confrontation might be, it’s a fun day-on-the-beach when compared to what you’re left with if you don’t have this confrontation:
Regret.
If only, what if, woulda, coulda, shoulda.
The sort of regret that will haunt you every step of the way into your 80s and taunt you on your death bed.
And when asked about the things they regret most, virtually every “senior citizen” mentions regret over things they didn’t do rather than things they did do.
Jeff Bezos used this insight as part of his “regret minimization framework”…and was inspired/compelled to quit his job as a successful stock analyst to start a company called Amazon.com
Here it is in Jeff’s own words:
The framework I found, which made the decision incredibly easy, was what I called — which only a nerd would call — a “regret minimization framework.” So I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, “Okay, now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have.”
I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision. — Jeff Bezos
The excruciating pain of disappointment and failure hurts way less than the agony of regret.
Either way, there’s pain. But you get to choose:
To disappoint them for a moment (and maybe delight them for a lifetime)…or just keep going through the motions to keep them happy, and live with terrible regret for the rest of your life.
The choice is yours.
Choose to live life with as few regrets as possible.
And a bonus video from Bronnie Ware, author of Top 5 Regrets Of Dying People:
Thanks for reading this article! If you’re ready to find your personal Escape Velocity…where you make the transition from being stuck, to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment…click here for more info.
10 Famous Exit Strategies From Medical School
Start with the end in mind – Stephen Covey, 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
Whether you’re robbing a bank, starting a business, or going to medical school, you need to be able to answer one question:
What’s your exit strategy?
As in, your “pre-planned means of extricating yourself from a situation that is likely to become difficult, dangerous or unpleasant”?
When it comes to the world of Medicine, the 2 default exit strategies are:
Retirement
Death
You will be a Doctor and practice Medicine until the day you die or retire, whichever comes first.
Now while these exit strategies may be the favourites of hospital managers, politicians and our parents’ generation…what about those of us who feel stuck, trapped and are looking for a way out of their medical career?
What about all the “happy” doctors who die by suicide?
I’m not a dropout…I’m an Exit Strategy
Thankfully, you don’t have to die or wait for retirement in order to get out of a miserable situation. Many of your predecessors have found their way out and modeled different Exit Strategies from the world of medicine.
Here are 10 famous exit strategies to inspire you.
Exit #1: Become A Teacher And Start A Family
Cindy dropped out of her 3rd year in medical school to become a teacher and start a family.You can read more about that here on her blog.
Exit #2: Pursue Your Lifelong Passion For Astronomy
Roshaan quit in his 4th year, to pursue a lifelong passion for astronomy, despite the lack of support or esteem from his community in Pakistan.
Exit #3: Finish Writing Your Sci-Fi novel (And Have Steven Spielberg Direct It As A Movie)
Michael graduated from Harvard Medical School, did a postgraduate fellowship study at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies…and then quit to become a full time science fiction writer…creating novels, movies and franchises such as Jurassic Park, ER, The Andromeda Strain, Twister, and many others.
Exit #4: Start A Rocket Ship Company
Peter wanted to fly into space…but went to medical school to make his parents proud. He launched a space company in his 4th year, graduated after promising the Dean he would never practise medicine…and launched the $10million X Prize, Planetary Resources (an asteroid mining company), just to mention a few projects.
Exit #5: Lead A Marxist Revolution In Argentina
Ernesto was inspired to tackle the diseases of poverty and inequality whilst travelling across South America. So he completed his medical studies and transformed the world of Argentinian politics as the force of nature we know as Che Guevara.
Exit #6: Join The NBA And Win 2 Championships
His mother was a doctor, and his father a senior nurse in Barcelona, Spain. And with two medical parents, Pau Gasol was set to follow in the family tradition. But along the way, Pau’s passion for basketball developed into a career that led him away from medicine and into 2 NBA championships as a professional basketball player.
Exit #7: Act In A World Famous TV Sitcom called Friends
After completing a psychobiology degree at Vassar College in New York, Lisa found her path to medicine hijacked by her love for show business and improv. This lead her to pursue a career as an actress, resulting in her being cast as Phoebe in one of the world’s most famous sitcoms.
Exit #8: Start A Comedy Troupe Called Monty Python
Graham went to the University of Cambridge to get a medical degree. Instead, he ended up deferring his studies to start a little comedy troupe called Monty Python.
Exit #9: Build A Private Medical Practice Designed By Your Patients
Pamela qualified as a Doctor, but quit the traditional pathway to build a medical practice designed by her patients.
Exit #10: Just Walk Away
Sometimes the simplest exit strategy…is just to simply walk away. Maria walked away from medicine 4 years after qualifying. She told TEDxJohannesburg it was the best thing she ever did.
You Are Not A Failure…You Are An Exit Strategy
Things are not as hopeless as they feel, and it’s never too late to change your mind and make new decisions based on new information. And when you’re ready to make a change, but feel guilty or condemned by those who choose to stay miserable, remember this:
You are not a dropout or a failure: you are an exit strategy.
QUESTION: What’s one thing that’s holding you back from making your exit?
Will I regret not trying this?
Whether you’re in medical school, on the wards or in a different context…live life in a way you won’t regret when you’re 80.
Don’t let your context determine your choices.
Let your choices transform your context.
It’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts.
Make sure you finish with as few regrets as possible.
Don’t forget your Vitamins
There are 2 classes of biomolecules: macro and micro.
The macro molecules are the ones that hog the limelight: Proteins, Carbohydrates and Lipids. We eat a lot of these each day and we break them down to create ATP …the Energizer bunnies that keep our bodies alive.
But the micro molecules…vitamins and minerals…Don’t get nearly enough attention.
For one thing, we only need a small amount of each one each day (miligrams or mjcrograms). And another thing, is we don’t create any energy from their breakdown.
However.
Even though minerals and vitamins don’t release energy from being broken down, without them it would be impossible to create energy from the Macro Trio of Proteins, Carbohydrates and Lipids.
In other words, the little guys run this show when it comes to regulating the metabolic pathways that keep us alive.
So here’s the question: what are your Vitamins?
I don’t mean your Thiamine, Riboflavin and Vitamin A.
I mean the “little things” that don’t have anything to do with what you’re supposed to be doing…and everything to do with who you really are.
They’re the interests, skills and hobbies that so easily get put off till “later”. They’re also the things you need if you want to generate the maximum ATP from whatever pathway you’re pursuing.
Remember, you only need 900 micrograms of vitamin A each day to maintain your vision.
But if you keep neglecting your intake of it…because it’s only 900 micrograms…the end result could be blindness.
Be honest with yourself about what your Vitamins are…and then be brave enough to prioritise your intake of them each day.
Have fun with it
Don’t do it because it’s on the test.
Don’t do it because your parents want you to be a Doctor.
Don’t do it because you’re afraid of failing.
Don’t do it because it’s expected of you.
Don’t do it because you need to.
Do it…because you get to.
You don’t have to study…you get to study.
And you get to learn amazing things about the human body that were complete mysteries just even a century ago.
I’m sorry for the “grown up” things you’ve gone through that have made you grow calluses and a thick skin…Just to survive.
But the ultimate act of rebellion…And the best way to fight back…is to have the audacity to have fun in whatever you’re doing.
They may be forcing you to learn endless minutiae…But you’re the one who can decide to have fun whilst you’re doing it.
Just cause they’re cracking the whip doesn’t stop you from being able to whistle while you work.
Find a way to have fun with it…Because you can.
Harmonic layering of Anatomy
This is an idea I borrowed from Scott at Scott’s Bass Lessons.
When it comes to playing a bass line, he starts with the rhythm, then the chord, then the chord tone (arpegio) and then finishes with the chord scale.
In other words, he doesn’t just try to play a Groove (Registered trademark).
Instead he lays it down, one layer at a time.
You can do the same thing with anatomy or anything that you’re learning.
So with anatomy, start with a stick man.
I’m serious.
Head, legs, arms, stick body…an extremely simplistic representation of a human being.
Congratulations, you know that humans have 1 head (Not two) and 2 arms and 2 legs.
Great! What else can you tell us?
You could then draw eyes, nose and mouth.
Fantastic! Tell us more!
And then step by step you just keep adding layers to the picture you’ve drawn until it fully represents the human body.
The more layers you can add, the more points you get.
But the point of this game is to take away the fear and feeling of being overwhelmed when studying a topic full of minutiae.
You know way more than zero.
And you can learn all the details if you’ll build up your picture/knowledge, one layer at a time.