Saturn

The thing about medical school that no one ever mentions is that it’s soul consuming. Like Saturn devouring his son level consuming. It demands more and more of you and so people are happy to give but I’ve never been much of a giver and I suppose this is where that debt went. Yes, every other aspect of my life got together, went to medical school, and said “it’s your job to make her pay up.” And so I have been paying. I operate in a parody. Workshops of professionals who have, by dint of being there, have sacrificed their personal lives. Made idols of their careers, fed into the broken system and of course some of them have noble intentions but those intentions tend to get lost in filling out the morning’s rounding notes. Maybe twitter isn’t the most reliable source for how the rest of the world is but it’s reliable enough for how the rest of my friends are living and the answer is they’re living soft, western lives. Going to the creek near their homes, panning over the river on their stories, letting the camera rest on a family of ducks. Some have purchased bikes with their SALARIES, not burdened by EXHORBITANT DEBT, both dreams I have had to abandon in pursuit of this grand profression. Yes, this grand profession of grinding students and grinding patients and “Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I’m aware that we live in a food swamp. I’m aware that there are literally, not exaggerating, 4 fast food restaurants on this corner alone as well as 3 McDonald’s within a 1 mile radius. I’m aware that the doctors that treat you come from nice, white northern Jersey towns and walk fast to their car at night to avoid the mugging that was never coming. I’m aware that’s what they think of you and the other brown people that live in this neighborhood. I’m aware the students are in a battle for their souls, deciding whether to let this beautiful beast of an institution eat them up body, mind, and spirit or maintain some independence while everyone around them is implying using anything but actual words that they should probably give in. But your blood glucose is high and sustained hyperglycemia eventually leads to nerve damage and I know insulin is expensive and it’s expensive not because it’s difficult to make, because it’s so easy to make that most biology students will learn the process in their Bio101 class, but because rich people made the conscious decision to let people die so they could add a deck to their cabin in upper Vermont or something. And there’s nothing I can do and there’s nothing you can do so that’s it.” And I have to go do some practice questions, so that’s it.