The simple fact is that people who achieve excellence in their fields didn’t just have a dream. They got up at 4:00 am to practice on parallel bars or had to forgo other desirable activities and paths in order to get in six hours of violin practice a day, or stayed off several million absurd writing advice blogs with their overheated little cliques that dispense useless regurgitated maxims and empty praise and decide to actually confront their own thoughts on a page. Or they read Beowulf and Dante carefully and deeply when they didn’t see any point, since all they were interested in was Sylvia Plath, because someone of more experience and wisdom told them to do so. I don’t know whether we’re overly lazy, stupid, or childish these days. But the idea of preparing oneself for excellence has somehow disappeared. So – my advice to dreamers: Don’t just follow your dreams. Earn them. Do what it takes to achieve it. Work for it. Don’t just sit there and dream because if you do, it will never, ever be yours.
- Harrison Solow, Don’t Follow Your Dream
***
I am going to succeed because I am crazy enough to think I can.
***
No one knew what he had
But our attending figured it out. He diagnosed him.
It was a rare form of leukemia.
You know it’s rare when Google’s feeble attempts to help out only turns up a handful of journal articles.
Do you know how he knew?
He read an article about it a few weeks before.
Everyone laughed at him, but he remembered that article and demanded we run the tests.
Turns out, he was right.
Never forget, reading saves lives.
To the first years, just staring out your med school journey, not sure why they signed up for this. To those who just finished boards, and never want to pick up a text book again. To the premeds, who just want to finish up their pre reqs and get to medical school already. To the spouses, who wonder if they will ever see their significant others without a textbook again.
This is why we do it.
This is why we stay up past our bedtimes.
And wake up before the sun.
This is why we memorize overly complicated pathways until we can do them in our sleep. Why we can name every class of antibiotic, even those no one uses anymore. This is why we push ourselves to be better every day than we were the last.
Why we put our lives on hold.
Not for more letters to put behind our name.
Not for some number on a score sheet.
Not because mom told us to.
We do it because one day, a day that will occur far faster than we are ready for, we’ll have our own patients. One day someone will come in and ask you “so doc, what is it.” And you’ll say to yourself, I know this.
So when the tediousness of studying gets you down, don’t forget:
Reading saves lives.