Posted by alexandra_k on December 29, 2014, at 16:33:53
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on December 29, 2014, at 15:31:59
I think it is because of priorities. Of what is important in life. Finally... Nobody gives a sh*t about what brand of this or that you are wearing. The squealy thing is much diminished. People are calmer. More sombre. More introverted / introspective. Respectful. Sensitive. Hospitals, fairly generally, are calming for me. Even the sound of alarms... They make most people freeze and stare wide-eyed. Looking around for the sheepdogs... Perhaps that is it... You don't seem to get the bully-people stepping up in that kind of a situation. Leaders emerge and people seem grateful. I don't see happy-puppy jostling. I don't see people jostling to take control of the situation. That's precisely the kind of situation in which I can step up. Most especially if I have a list (have confidence in my ability to work through that list)... The more automatic that it the better I can (I know I actually can) bring other kinds of monitoring processes online, too... For some of the out of the box... The kind of thinking that prevents boredom kicking in as you do a process for the 10th, 100th, 1,000th, 100,000th time...
People do seem to like me and look to me to lead. I'm not entirely sure why... I think it is partly my age, now. And I'm tall-ish for a female... I've had some people say that there is something about the way I move that is eye catching. I sort of float... I know one can't be objective about oneself... But I think I do have some kind of quality of movement that makes my movement form eye catching... Perhaps because I find something aesthetically pleasing about movement myself so I work hard at the gym mostly to improve on it and that does shine through... And... I think I'm attractive in a pleasant way. I'm very conservative in my dress and I don't have a tended look of makeup and hours with hair dryers / products... So... Sort of non-sexual, I guess, which makes people feel less threatened... Anyway... Whatever... Perhaps because my natural response in an emergency is to step back away from the people (so I can keep my eyes on the whole herd) and to... Obviously... Think. Think about what I can do. Instead of standing there in absolute shock that all the chatter has stopped and that the siren is too loud for people to talk to / at each other... Panicked eyes looking for someone to MOVE so everyone can follow...
I was talking about physics for summer school and whether other people were going to do it. And people were like 'why, it isn't a requirement for your pathway'? And I was like 'because it will help me understand physiology since it is largely based on physical principles'. And people were like 'why, you only need to remember the powerpoint factoids they throw at you'. And eventually I was like 'okay, you got me. I like physics. I'll enjoy it, that's why I want to do it'. These people are weird... They have alien attitudes for me..
I was watching a documentary... And this is a theme that has come up many times... About 'brilliant people' who do this or that. About some doctor who cared more about his patients than his family. Who spent more time at the hospital than he did at home. They cast it as him making sacrifices. Like he was some kind of hero or saint for sacrificing something he clearly loved more / would clearly personally prefer to be doing (hanging with his family) for some higher principle (to benefit mankind or sense of duty to his patients or whatever). But no. You would burn out if that was what you were doing. Become bitter and resentful with life. Clearly what was going on was... He loved his job. That's why he did it. He felt more comfortable caring for patients than hanging out at home. Probably... He couldn't deal with the unstructured environment. He didn't know how to be without his role. He couldn't have done otherwise, in other words. That's what you want, seems to me. When the students are all about 'I'd love to do it - but only part time because I want a life as well....' When people are all 'medicine can't be your life or you will burn out'... Medicine isn't really calling them, is it. They don't have that vocation. There are a bunch of students who are all, like 'patients just want us to give them this and that and they don't treat us with the respect they once used to have for our profession'. But then... They don't want to treat their vocation / their patients with the respect that used to be the standard for the profession, either. So... I don't trust doctors because I don't know their (largely undisclosed) financial interests. The pharma perks. The advertising (in the name of education) they have been subjected to. Even the studies are corrupt. Hard to know when to trust the science. Hard to know when I'm being sacrified for some (misguided) ideology about what is good for populations... I want control of my own healthcare... And along the way... I'll be in the position to help others... Maybe even populations...
I think the person has been left out... Somehow in the catch-phrase of 'reductionism- bad' the population focus has somehow ignored the fact that populations are comprised (largely) of persons. This whole idea of 'quality adjusted life years' is morally repugnant to me. The idea that there is an objective hierarchy of quality of life and that certain people have less quality of life than others... The idea that quality decreases with age. That people who aren't able to hear (whose other senses are hightened in compensatory ways) are worse off because of something intrinsic about them (rather than because of societies prejudices and ignorances and because of largely arbitrary ways in which much of it is set up)... That if a person has something like loss of limb then they are placed lower down transplant lists (for example) because the thought is that their quality of life is always going to be impaired, anyway, so the transplant is worth more given to someone who thereby gets up over the 'normal!' line... It makes me angry... So very soulless... Personless... The... Warped and... Psychopathic... Moral intuitions / quality judgements that seem intuitive to economists... I mean, my God, rich people probably have higher quality of life from the perspective of economics, too, which probably justifies why rich people should be bumped up the transplant lists too - right?
I feel sad that I need to spend time learning to pick the middle and answering questions (learning to inter-personally relate the way the ACER consortium has decided is ideal)... I could have spent the several hundred dollars on a first aid course... I feel... Sad. That this kind of sh*t may prevent me... For some kid who got really really good at memorising factoids. I guess I just have to trust the selection process... Or... Or perhaps 'And'... If it screws me over... Trust that whatever medicine has become... It isn't for me.
I suppose I could look into going overseas and volunteering for things... Try and actually... Work my way up into something that way. If that makes sense. By being generally useful. I don't know how I'd cope without my own little cave, though. That is basically the problem...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141123/msgs/1074565.html