Customer Service Rant, Boards, William,
Dad, & TalentI've been spinning my wheels a bit since completing
the last formal, classroom bit of my medical educification [sic]. Man it
feels good.
I've had run-ins with customer service over the last few days, a
product of having put off dealing with services in light of exams.
Michelle Downing also had a little run-in with customer service. All
that built up to the point where I wrote a vitriol-filled, venomous
diatribe on customer service, complete with four-letter, six letter, and
hyphenated- word indulgences, aimed at Dish Network, Immigration,
Bureaucracy, and the lack of customer service in general. We've
lost that sense of a customer being valued. It's all about the dollar.
What a shame that the society that pushed the frontiers of economic
development into uncharted territories we live in today has also
developed the Frankenstein menace of the world's worst appreciation for
currency spent.
In contrast, South Africa may have the best customer service on the
planet. When one encounters a South African merchant or service
provider, and that same one says thank you, s/he is met with a genuine
utterance that is as refreshing as a sunrise on vacation at a distant
beach - "It's a pleasure" - said in the lilting tongue derived of Dutch
and English of yore. What a breath of fresh air.
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My schedule for studying boards (US Medical Licensure Exam Step 1) is
as follows. I will study 31 pages per day of General principles, which
are the most basic sciences upon which medicine is base. I will study 39
pages per day of Organ Systems. And I will do 70 questions per day from
the Question Bank that Kaplan provides as exam preparation. That allows
for two days of flexibility. To make it fun, I am at least thinking
about making a Robcast of my studies. It will force me to review what I
study each day, and also provide me with an easily accessible audio
review that I can listen to while driving, working out, or essentially
not really studying. Listening to the iPod was a successful way to learn
lecture material last year, and making my own podcast and listening to
it is kinda fun. We'll see if I can keep it up for a month straight. I'm
starting tomorrow, but I got a little bit of a head start today with a
preview of cardiovascular embryology.
A caveat is that my iPod went kaput a few days ago, and I had to send
it in for repair or replacement. That was impeccable timing. The Murphy
god must've been laughing.
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More randomly arranged but significant occurrences of late include my
brother-in-law's death, and Maggie's rapid departure for Zambia, to
attend the funeral, say good-bye, and see her family. I miss her, but
not nearly as much as she missed William. I pray that his soul finds
peace, and that those Mumbis who remain can find peace during their
living years. To borrow, William died of Zambia. He died from
preventable disease in a place where economic circumstances belied
adequate health care. His is a story that repeats hundreds of times
every day in Zambia. Hundreds of families mourn a loss of one of their
own at a too-young age...every day. And we see American Idol on
television instead of alerts to this ongoing and escalating tragedy.
Wake up!
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Uncle Norris was diagnosed with a bladder cancer and he is undergoing
chemotherapy. This is after a post-heart surgery stroke, but despite all
this, his spirit soars.
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My dad (also named William) in his role with Almgren & Associates,
Inc. have developed a new sighting technology for marksmen whereby one
can accurately shoot a target at a range of one mile. That is an
unbelievable accomplishment to me. I asked him recently about his
greatest satisfactions for his career. He has made a remarkable career,
which is anchored by an education at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Boston and the California Polytechnic Institute in
Pasadena. He graduated number one in his class. His most satisfying
project was the Minuteman project, he said, without hesitation. Then he
went on to work on "the one part of Hubble that worked." Most of his
work remains classified. He was affiliated with the C.I.A. for over
twenty years, and to his credit, I don't know what that involvement was.
After his first retirement, he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.A.,
which is why I am here. He became involved with Larry DeLucas' program
which grows protein crystals in zero gravity aboard the Space Shuttle.
He developed the X-ray beam hardware that measures the crystals on the
shuttle - an advantage that circumvents the distortion of crystals
when they reenter the atmosphere - changing the technology from the size
of a room, to that of the size of a readily loadable compartment for the
shuttle. One of the proteins examined was insulin, and my dad is a Type
I diabetic, so that was a beautiful confluence of applied intelligence
and happenstance. And now he's incorporated and patented his applied
ingenuity.
The kicker of it all is that he registers all of this as a
means to provide for his wife and family. He was once told he would live
to be 35. Now he has plans that will keep him busy until he's 75. So
he's proved the doctors wrong, and he's done it with a humble manner,
maintaining his small town roots that dig into Oregon and Washington
soil. If I can become half the man he has, I will have lived well.
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Stress is an insidious little demon that has manifested itself in my
life quite a lot of late. I lost my phone the last week of classes
because of a number of stressors. I have complained and unleashed a
verbal furor that I usually reserve for the most dark recesses of my
mind, only to be seen and heard by myself and my God. In the midst of it
all, I have found new friends, and a network of deep support that is
built on trust and the most valuable commodities - love.
Class officers Michelle Downing and Jinnie Kim have tolerated a
couple of rants that would have made the Pope bless himself and
immediately pray for my soul. A small group project hit me just on the
day when Maggie's brother died, and I performed poorly - I didn't carry
my load. Instead of ridicule and disdain, my group carried me, broken
but breathing, and didn't complain about it. The contrary, they rallied
around me, and I feel very indebted to them. There were others who knew
of my hardships that were collected like dirty dishes in a sink that
lacks running water, and they offered to help clean up. LeeAnn McAliley,
Stephen Tanner, and Dr. Ryan Swain were among them. Ashley Thomas
and her husband Justin kept me sane, as they have done for over a year,
infusing my abnormal circumstances with normal. To all of you I
say, I am not sure that I could have done it without you.
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What else can I unload about?
Thinking about organizing a talent show for our class. We are 160+ of
the most talented individuals I have ever had the privilege of being
associated with. Come June, we will all be together in one place for the
last time as a group until the time we graduate in 2008. And I would
like to see what we can do outside of medicine. Once and indeed, for
all.
