What I've Been Doing After Graduation

I don't do well with unemployment. I get antsy when I'm too lazy, and I need things to keep me busy and active. After graduation, I've kept up two vaguely academic exercises. I decided to volunteer at a UCSF event where elementary school students from underserved communities came to UCSF for a day. The event was to excite them about science and encourage them to pursue college. It was very similar to the MedTeach activities I did as a first year medical student. I got to teach 50 fourth and fifth graders about the anatomy of the heart. It was really fun and reminded me how much I enjoy working with kids and teaching. Fourth and fifth grade is a great time because the students haven't become "too cool" for science and yet have some insight into the human body and a working level of attention.

I've also been auditing the elective "The Mentoring Muse," taught by David Watts, a writer and gastroenterologist who runs the weekly creative writing workshops I attend. The course focuses on medical humanism and literature, using Dr. Watts' books as a text. We talked about how to listen, engage patients, interpret their stories, use silence, and approach moral boundaries. As a writer, I think words have immense power, meaning, and heft, and that as doctors, we have to recognize the significance of what we say and do. This course really brought me back to the pre-clinical realm when being a doctor was about being a doctor, before I got muddled with all these questions, facts, and dilemmas.