Not me, said the lizard. Well, but....I did a variation. My college degree is a bachelor of science in Scandinavian Studies and Zoology with Honors. I have more than one interest...

I worked and saved for five years between college and med school because I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. I thought grad school: I even took the GREs. Did really well. But the thought of writing a thesis was horrid*. I did not want to be one of three world experts in honeybee behavior or toenail fungus or whatever. I was working in a lab at the National Institutes of Health and the science was fascinating but the postdocs and physicians literally fought with each other until they taped off 42 inches of lab desk top each....A person's a person no matter how small....and I thought, damn it, I am a generalist, how the hell do I do that? OH! Primary care, family practice and I can work ANYWHERE in the ENTIRE WORLD and am not tied to a stupid college or university... and job security and life long learning...And I LOVE it!

Now the Introverted Thinker is off to college. She said, "Mom, would you leave my room the same for two years?" "Yes," I said. I have signed my work lease for two years. I am starting to go through NINE YEARS of stuff set aside because I was a single mother full time doctor taking call and then opening my own clinic, learning to run a business, and sister died, father died, family craziness ever since....I need Maryanne, the Steam Shovel....

And I have been family practicing for 27 years....what will I do in two years? I don't know yet....


My medical school, the Medical College of Virginia, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University, chose older students. Half our class had been working for some period of time before starting. We thought the young ones who continued to party every night, often around the cadavers they were dissecting, were morons. I worked nine jobs before medical school. The older students were more skeptical about everything, more thoughtful and most of them treated the hospital staff better....

*It wasn't the writing itself that bothered me. It was picking a focus and narrowing. I did not want to.