If you want to be a doctor, then read this

Unsolicited advice is similar to finding Space Jam on TV: you’ll never actually seek it out, but when it accidentally butts its way into your life, it can certainly make a difference. Spoiler alert—I will not end this column with a half-court dunk.

Fun fact: “how do I get into med school” gets 109 million hits on Google - this is compared to a scant 65.2 million hits for “how do I become a good doctor”. Meaning a lot of people are painting lipstick on a pig to get into their dream medical school, but once they’re there, the actual process of turning your beautiful swine into some nice crunchy bacon is not quite as well defined —“clear as mud”, as they say. I’ve recently had a few random experiences that made me really question where I even am.

I had a patient in clinic tell me that her issues had been going on for “a minute”. As that description of time ranges from “slightly more annoying than The Lego Movie not being nominated for best animated movie” to “makes me want to rip my hair out”—jokes on you, I’m balding. Can’t get bald twice, sucka—I wanted her to clarify. She said, “Oh sweetie, it was a LONG MINUTE.” So great, now I’m faced with the dilemma of how to kindly, yet sternly, ask a sweet 80 year old lady for the third time to give me any sort of semi-coherent answer. Just to recap, I went to four years of undergrad and have finished almost three years of medical school to get to the point where I’m sitting in a room and my biggest problem is quantifying time, which is a skill that I thought I mastered the first time around being seven years old. That’s not my only educational deficiency, though.

Another thing I can’t do yet that doctors can is identify people who are at high risk of dying if we don’t intervene. That’s what earns people a trip to the intensive care unit where we artificially eat, breathe, pump blood, drink, pee, poop, pass flatus, grow hair, sweat or whatever bodily function you want us to do. People get worse. People get better. Not to get too philosophical or religious, but if people want to say that doctors are playing god, I’d love to have that omniscience sense to know who falls in each of the categories and why.

But now that’s a luxury that I get to, as a student, spend more than 15 minutes with each of my patients every morning. I don’t just get their vital signs, do their physical exam, look at meds, labs, etc., but I get to hear their whole story—what room are they staying in, when are their kids coming to see them, how they plan on leaving the hospital, or what they are going to eat as soon as they don’t have to eat hospital food—because nobody would ever sneak food into the hospital. This might have gotten me in a little bit of trouble when I told a patient that their urine had grown out E Coli—a common urinary tract pathogen—but the patient hear E-bola, which prompted a request for a transfer out of the hospital because we gave this person “the Ebola”. “Sometimes you just need to shut your mouth and keep to yourself, Geoffrey” says my mother to seven year old Jeremy—update: I’m nearly 26 and she still calls me my brother’s name.

So I’m going to open my mouth. Would I have gone through college differently or even changed careers knowing what I know now? Yes. But then again, I also probably wouldn't have wasted time on season three of House of Cards either. I never would have known that fake Putin would end up being my favorite character. I would have had major FOMO whenever people talked about it, so I just needed to know. Whoever started perpetuating the idea that getting into med school was the hardest part of being a doctor is full of crap, but it’s certainly the most out of your hands.

I know duke is full of people who are thinking about how to get where I am/going to be here soon. I think that 139 million people probably have had similar ideas to me, but at any rate, whatever you enjoy most in college is probably the best way to get here is what they’re all saying. If you end up hating analytical chemistry but loving something else—that’s fine. If you think taking the history and future of Canadian baseball is a class that might make it worthwhile to be functional at med school parties, which is roughly 30 percent of your grade, then that’s what you need to take.

Regardless, you’re going to be relearning the same lessons as a seven year old, so just make sure you've brushed up on tying your shoes and brushing your teeth - you’re going to need it.