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chrissu
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Name: Chris
Birthday: 12/26/1988
Gender: Male
Interests: rainy days, penguins, the scent of freshly cut grass, starbucks' iced caramel macchiato and mango creme, raindrops on windowpanes, breezes from the sea, tangerines, sugarless green teas, sunrises, hot showers, stuffed animals, pudding milk teas, lazy afternoons, sleeping, math, APs, chatting at two in the morning, cello, christian music, languages, piano, ikura (raw salmon eggs), idleness, contemplating (fah-dai-ing), travelling, swimming, chess, intellectual pursuits, jogging, mountain hiking, mystery novels, kimchi, critiquing movies, jing sahs, sunflowers, bumblebees, collecting money, pristine beaches, seashells, smiling.
Expertise: putting off til tomorrow what can be done today x)
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
MSN: chrissu_1226@hotmail.com
Member Since:
6/24/2003
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| August 18, 2009: Summary
I guess in an unexpected and totally random way I got into this internship this summer. Now, thinking in retrospect, this had been an amazing summer. Not only did I get to spend 9 weeks in one of the best places to live – I also got to know a lot of doctors and formed a lot of connections. As I expected, I knew that the interactions between the staff and interns would be pretty close, but I didn’t expect that I’ll also get to know my fellow interns this well either (I’ll be seeing Julia again in October!).
To me, the most important thing that this internship has taught me is that being a doctor is not always the glamorous life you see on TV – a big house, a high paying job, a respected post at a hospital. Although I’m not trying to imply that a doctor who doesn’t have these things are underqualified, but you can also be another type of doctor – the type that works behind the scenes for social change and working on the behalf of the underserved populations. None of the doctors I worked for this summer has a private office displaying all of their diplomas and qualifications, and none of the doctors that I work for this summer have an army of nurses and support staff at their disposal, like the doctors you see on TV. A lot of these doctors graduated from prestigious undergraduate institutions and medical schools all the same, but realized that there is a moral imperative in medicine, and that is to follow their hearts’ calling and serve in an underserved community.
One of the biggest questions that I kept on posing to doctors throughout the internship is, “why did you choose not to specialize but instead work as an internal medicine doctor in a community clinic?” The responses I got were quite varied, but there was a common thread: “after awhile, you just…know. You know that it’s what you’re supposed to do – what your “calling” is.” Of course, there is the initial uncertainty and the doubt, but one doctor assured me that, “once you figure out what you’re supposed to do, the path will seem quite obvious to you.” Some of the doctors served in underdeveloped countries for a couple of years, others worked with HIV populations before going into internal medicine, and yet many more did hospital inpatient work before transferring to this community clinic. They’re all coming from a wide range of backgrounds, but I feel the common thread of wanting to serve is quite evident.
This summer, in effect, led me to also ask many questions of why I want to be a doctor. I initially thought that since I enjoyed science and finding a method of fixing things (like the human body), I would enjoy medicine a lot. However, the more I go into my education, the more I noticed that I enjoy community service work a lot. I enjoy building up the community around me, providing them with services that they would not have access to otherwise. A case in point is the SAT Prep program that I’ve been directing for the last two years – I see the SAT Prep program as a way for the underserved populations in Boston who may be too poor to afford an SAT Prep program to take a test prep class. It’s a way of empowering these students to achieve their full potential and help them to get to college. In other ways, I’ve also explored community service through teaching to high schoolers and traveling with doctor brigades to Central America and the mountains of Taiwan. The more I look into what I want to do in the future, I feel like the thread is increasingly getting clearer that I want a job where I can derive satisfaction and self-gratification by providing a tangible service to others. This, more than anything else, drives my desire for medicine – aside from the science and the problem aspect.
My mentor for the summer quickly pointed out that I can enter into social work instead, rather than become a MD – but I also thought about this issue. I guess by merit of my training, I feel like I would still prefer a scientific career, other than purely approaching service from a completely humanitarian perspective. I guess what would be the most ideal for me is to enter into some kind of organization (like this community clinic) in the future or work for a bigger kind of public health organization like the WHO. I guess anything’s really possible in the future, and I guess I’ll just have to see where it takes me.
Another thing I want to mention about this summer is that this internship really emphasized to me the need to look at patients as human beings, not as a statistic. Increasingly, in popular media, we see patients referred to as numbers or figures on some data analysis. When we speak of 200 million of budget cuts to underserved health care, we frequently do not connect the cut to something that has an effect on live human beings. For example, we neglect the fact that a grandmother who is out of work and who has no family may no longer get expedient health care, or the fact that a family of six living on food stamps will have to pay out of their own pockets to get eyeglasses for the son entering middle school. Popular media makes us complacent to these stories – makes us numb to the fact that we are on a ship together with other human beings, regardless of their income level. Their welfare is not something we can just toss out the window, based on our biases.
I guess I’ve never truly worked with the extremely impoverished until this summer, when at times it feels like all that we see are uninsured patients, or patients on the Californian equivalent of Medicaid. Seeing them come into the clinic lent me an entirely new perspective on the health care debate, and also just the need of more doctors going into “social medicine” in the future. I feel like I’ve been so caught up in the neurosurgeons and the heart surgeons that we see in the media that I’ve forgotten what the crux of being a doctor is.
In ancient Chinese sayings, the job of being a doctor is akin to “hanging up your medicine gourd and benefiting the society.” (the medicine gourd being a gourd in which ancient doctors would put herbs into and dispense the medicine later to their patients). The key is that you should aim to “benefit society” – not just to fill your coffers or revel in the glory of having proven yourself capable of the rigors of medical school and medical training. I may be overly rosy and naïve in my assessment of this situation, but I feel like this kind of doctor is what our society direly needs, and what our society requires in order to produce a medical system that works for every individual in the nation – regardless of your gender, race, or income level.
This summer had been a roller-coaster ride of sorts, but I’m really grateful to have had this opportunity to learn about the challenges of public health. I think I will distill some of these thoughts further in the next two weeks in Taiwan, as I contemplate my next steps and this last year before I apply to med school.
It has been great. San Francisco has also been really awesome and amazing.
So here concludes everything Summer 2009 related. For the people who had been reading my blog (if there’s any left at all), thank you for bearing with my ramblings. I’m sure it didn’t really make sense a lot of the times since I’m frantically typing things up before sacrificing too much sleep time. =p But yup. Hope you enjoyed it all the same.
-august 18, 2009, 7:23 PM (flying from Tokyo to Taipei) | | |
| august 16, 2009: day 65
today woke up near noon, having gone to sleep like at 4 or 5 am last night, hahaha. but yeah, after waking up headed into the city to meet sophia, who came to sf for the weekend! met her at powell station and then we pretty much just walked around the city. i took her to chinatown, up to russian hill, down to fisherman's wharf/pier 39, across to ghiradelli square, and then took the muni to jtown, where we had dinner! haha sophia surprisingly could walk a LOT, and it was great catching up with her cuz i haven't seen her since october last year? something like that...haha when she came to MIT - and then the last time seeing her before that was upmunc my frosh year! wow -_- haha time really flies. but yeah, pretty much just chatted with her the whole day. it was also nice going to all of these places again (sophia was the 4th? person i took to fisherman's wharf this summer? after sean, liz, pear lol). but it was nice to even just go up to russian hill again since it has a pretty good view of the city and i haven't been there since that weekend when i randomly found a quaint park on the top of the hill. yeah today was cloudy at the aquatic park next to ghiradelli square though, so we couldn't see golden gate, but ah well.
dinner at jtown was GREAT! haha i had soup noodles with a small oyako don (the soup noodles got messed up and they actually gave me like a bigger portion of a vegetable udon, lol - they did add $3 to the bill but it's really ok, since it tasted good anyways). the oyako don was excellent, and then i also ended up eating most of sophia's steamed eel rice (wappa meshi?). but yeah, it was fun at jtown. after that i took sophia back to the center of the city via the muni, and then she took the muni to the airport since she had to catch a 9:30 flight (it was like 7:30 at this point).
i took the bart back to berkeley, went to half off books for the last time to get a book, and then came back and pretty much just tidied things up and packed...(which shouldn't take all the way till 4 am, but then i'm just kind of leisurely putting away things, haha, and i figure i can just sleep on the airplane since there's a super long flight (13 hours + 4 hours in transit) again! but yeah. now the whole apartment is packed up (actually the real packing up took like an hour or something like that :P), and i'm probably ready to go now! have to leave here by 8.45 latest tomorrow, sooo hopefully nothing dumb happens (like oversleeping :P) come to think of it, i'll set another alarm.
but yeah, this will be the end of my daily summaries for this summer. after getting back to taiwan, i probably will post another "wrap-up" entry to summarize this summer (somewhat), but then i will not continue this diary anymore.
i think this had been an interesting experiment, and i was able to look back and actually see how i was so confused about this place in the first week i was here and now here i am, having gone to sf every single weekend and completely finished with the 9-week internship. this summer in sf has truly been great, and i don't think i've had such a good summer since junior summer with ssp in 2006 three years ago.
yup. i'll really miss this place.
-august 17, 2009, 4:04 am | | |
| august 14-15, 2009: day 63-64
so friday was the last day of the internship, and i spent the morning shadowing daveena in clinic. we saw a lot more of the same types of diabetics...etc. patients but the highlight of the morning was when a patient whom daveena detected colon cancer early (while his previous doctor failed to do so) presented daveena with a meticulously rendered calligraphy scroll letter-of-thanks. it's quite amazing actually, and he read it out loud to daveena (she couldn't read chinese very well). the letter was pretty elegantly written and basically lauded what a great doctor she is. it's quite amazing really, haha. i think that ended this entire summer of shadowing on a high note :)
and then during lunch daveena and sophy took all the interns to the farmer's market by oakland for lunch, and then daveena actually bought me the pizza i ate (it's kinda cool pizza - there's a cracked egg in the middle of the pizza, basically just entitled "egg pizza" - never seen such a thing before).
afterwards we headed back to the clinic, and we basically spent most of the afternoon just signing/writing out thank you cards to all the staff (nicole managed to design and print them last week). we signed around 50-60 cards, which was a pretty big task, i think haha). but yeah. we finished near 4 and went around the clinic distributing them (sonny also made toffee and there's cookies that nicole's roommate made). nicole also had the idea of getting giant microbes for the doctors, which was pretty awesome (she got sophy a leucocyte which was sooo cute! hahaha)
but yeah. had to say goodbye to all the staff, which was kind of sad :(
after work i had to rush home and pack, since i had to make it to cheeseboard by 7 to meet all of the other interns for one final dinner and then get to the bart by 7.45 to go to the airport. i packed, took a shower, and it was already like 6.50ish. jumped on a bus to get to cheese board and made it there by 7.15ish? i actually had time to spend 20-30 minutes at cheeseboard, and then i walked back to the berkeley bart station and got on the SFO bart at like 8.00ish. i got to the airport at around 9.15 and made the 10.20 flight fine, although i was scared since i couldn't sign in again electronically (i never seem to be able to do that) and then i had to wait in an extremely long time for customer service @@"
the flight itself was okay. i slept the whole day pretty much and was in boston before i really knew it. took the silver line and red line back to mit (so strange to be back) and then walked from kendall square to new house. new house FINALLY got a touch sensor for the front door! (this was extremely exciting) and then i was able to see joyce :)
after leaving new house, i went to take the chinese medical translation test. at first i actually went to the wrong address (i went to central square, when it should be in boston - i forgot the address referred to boston rather than cambridge). the site is next to BU medical center, and i was greeted by this really kind lady that i've talked to on the phone before. the test was about an hour or so long, and comprised of basically a bunch of translation from english to chinese and from chinese back to english. (there's also an english listening portion in the beginning, which was kind of interesting, since you're supposed to know how to "paraphrase" english commands into simpler forms). i think i did over 80% on the chinese translation part (you need 75%+ to pass), which is ok. i think i also may have messed up one or two of the english listening questions, but oh well :P
after the test, i talked to the lady some more about language resources in boston, and then took the number 1 bus back to mit. after saying bye to joyce i pretty much just headed back to kendall to go to the airport again (HAHA in boston so short!). bought gifts for jason and his gf at the mit bookstore in kendall and then took red line and silver line again to the airport. got on the 4.30 flight to washington dulles (i had to transfer at dulles on the way back - the plane getting to washington dc is a super small plane! it seats like 40 or something like that).
after getting to dulles, i found this japanese place and had yakisoba there (which was surprisingly good, hahaha). i basically just hung around and read till 8.30, when i boarded the flight back to sf. again, i spent most of the flight sleeping, until the last 2 hours or so when i woke up because the girl next to me wouldn't go to sleep and turned on her light really brightly, haha. got to sf at 11.30 and got on the 11.59 bart back to berkeley (i actually couldn't swipe my bart ticket because i was in such a big rush - i got off the plane at 11.35 but took the airtrain in the wrong direction and got to the bart at like 11.50. in the mad rush to get onto the train the ticket didn't swipe properly at the airport station - and this caused me to be unable to exit in berkeley, but then i was able to explain my situation at berkeley after getting back near 1 am, haha). after coming back i cooked curry noodles from jason's curry pouch, haha :P and then talked to mom for one hour.
i'm actually kind of sleepy now (well, it's really late, haha). meeting up with sophia tomorrow!
it's nice to be back in this bed again :)
-august 16, 2009, 4:39 am | | |
| august 13, 2009: day 62
today morning, got up, and then went to the clinic after collapsing at 3 am. during lunch, the clu staff took us to levende east for lunch, and we had a pretty good lunch there, i had their supposedly famed mini lamb burgers (which was pretty good! :P). and then afterwards went back to the clinic, where we filled out the final survey feedback forms, ate cake for julia's birthday, and then had more cake during the internship "graduation." (oh yeah, we made some more phone calls to providers, but that was okay, since most of the phone calls went to voicemail)
so yeah the graduation began with dr. nghe's remarks in the beginning, which was getting pretty sentimental, and then he presented us each with a certificate (framed! - lol looks better than the MCA diploma, HAHA). and then we all had more cake (they bought this giant cake that could serve like 70 people i think). then we took a bunch of "graduation" pictures LOL which was pretty fun.
and then yeah, that was it! we're technically finished! (well we have another day tomorrow, but it's supposed to be a "fun" day? haha)
after work i waited for steven, and then we had dinner together at this okay szechuan restaurant (steven said the restaurant was not good in the beginning, but then i realized what the problem was - the food is really spicy and heavy, which is probably why, but oh well).
but yeah, it was fascinating to talk to him and why he did medicine, and then just chat about taiwan in general (he's very taiwanese, despite having grown up in the states). we chatted for like 4 hours and then i took the 11.30 bart home :P
tomorrow is the real "last day!" i don't know why, but it's getting kind of sad :( i will most definitely miss everyone.
-august 14, 2009, 1:32 am
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| august 12, 2009: day 61
wow, today i have been in sf for two whole months (well, more like 9 weeks but i left taiwan on june 12). can't believe that was the beginning of the summer then!
but yeah, i went to sleep last night near 5 (had to iron shirts) but then a phone call woke me up at 8.20. it was a lady from the dept of public health in boston calling, since i wanted to join their mandarin medical interpretation course and i called her for information a few days ago. turns out that the only time she can accommodate me is august 27 or...this weekend. (you have to take a language assessment test before you're allowed to join the class). i did some thinking and realized that if i head back on august 27, i would have to sacrifice 4 days in taiwan (putting the time in taiwan from 13 days to more like 9 days!!). therefore, i had to figure out a way of possibly taking the assessment test this weekend. after i finished talking with the lady i went on united.com and checked available flights. there is a red-eye flight out of sfo friday night that gets there saturday morning, and i can just take an afternoon flight back on saturday. i didn't want to pay for anything (geez, if i have to pay for this i rather just come back early), so i had to choose flights that can be covered by my united miles. it turns out that the red-eye flight is basically full, and i can't get on it anymore (although i can see that there are 2 empty seats), so i tried calling united reservations to see what happens. miraculously, i was able to book the tickets through their phone system! (i got one of the last two seats remaining), with a return flight on saturday afternoon. the phone system is actually fairly efficient (i had terrible experience with bank of america's voice system) - although it does take a long time cuz you have to listen to all of their recordings (the booking took half an hour). after the phone reservation, i just went online to the system to select seats, and ended up paying only 7.50 to go back to boston (taxes). so yeah, i will be in boston this saturday (HAHA didn't expect i'll go back before school starts, hai).
yeah by this time it was too late to go back to sleep (i planned on waking up at 10.20 earlier), so i just got dressed and went to work.
after getting there, i still had an hour or so but since i did the powerpoint the night before, i didn't really have to fix much on the actual presentation. we did the presentation at noon, and it went pretty good. all the interns knew their stuff (even though we had to try really hard to stay within the time constraints - we managed to finish 4 presentations in 50 minutes! which is not bad). my presentation went quite smoothly (sometimes even two rounds will help tremendously in triggering what you need to say - like i didn't practice for the health care debate and it really showed). i was also able to get the audience engaged at points (laughing), which is great. i feel like i'm the type of speaker that derives a lot of my energy from the energy of the audience, rather than the other way around (heard about these two different types of speakers in rhetoric class), so the interaction today really went well. a lot of people showed up too to hear us talk! (like 30 or so doctors and other staff).
since we did the presentation, we felt a great sense of relief afterwards and wanted to go somewhere to celebrate, so we all went to shan dong (sunny and nicole's first time!) and we had great food there with 3 platters, 1 dumpling, and 2 jajangmiens, haha. :) we then had boba afterwards and kinda just worked/chilled at the clinic till 5 (i entered in some tech assessment surveys, and since it's also nicole's birthday we were trying to pass around a birthday card for all the clinicians behind julia's back haha. someone also got julia this really cool present which is basically a yellow towel rolled up to resemble a cake (there's decorations on top), and i thought it was a real cake in the beginning o___o lol i haven't ever seen something like that before!)
and then yeah, i came home at 6, and then passed out on the couch till 8.15 since i figured i should sleep some to make up for my lack of sleep the night before. woke up pretty groggily to go eat pho, and then came back around 9.30. then, i've just been chilling till now (it feels so strange to suddenly have no more final projects, when that's something that we've been working on for almost the last 2-3 weeks at night straight) and then yeah. i don't know why i'm up so late but i really should get to sleep. oh yeah, i did laundry too tonight. haha.
so yes! today is such an odd day. so many different things happened. i just hope i survive the SFO->BOS->SFO-in-less-than-24-hours trip this friday/saturday!
-august 13, 2009, 2:48 AM | | |
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