Friday, July 03, 2009

Conversation

One thing you notice as a medical student is that all your topics of conversation revolve around medicine. You get together with med school friends and all you talk about is this rotation or resident or interesting case. You see friends in other fields and itch to tell them about your day or your plans or having to stay up all night. You forget other stuff exists; when Barack Obama comes up in a conversation, you're only interested in talking about his health care policies; when Michael Jackson comes up, you focus on the cause of death. You have no idea what movies are out or what people do in their spare time or who is dating whom. Our world suddenly becomes so small, so vivid and fascinating to us, but a black box to everyone outside.