Foot in door vs. Foot in mouth

As some of you already know, I quit medical school about two months ago. I had one full year to go, which is an eternity when you despise something as much as I did medicine. It’s not about the hard work, it’s not about annoying patients, and it’s not about being in the hospital. What I hated was the science and knowledge of medicine. I simply did not care whether or not 2% of a specific subset of the population were prone to a disease that had a 30% chance of turning them into pumpkins. I don’t care about all the funny little proteins floating around in our bodies doing their jibber-jabber business. I don’t care about the 0.8% increase in the resistance to a particular antibiotic of a strain of bacteria in Baltimore found only in Oompa-Loompas addicted to cocaine. I don’t care about seeing little chocolate covered donuts under the microscope and knowing that there’s a 82% likelihood of the presence of a malignant vs. benign tumor. Whoopdy-freaking-doo. I just don’t care. So when people told me “why don’t you just become a radiologist,” they were completely missing the point.

One of the few things that I was truly passionate about (and proud of) in medical school was my position as the president of APAMSA, and our incredibly successful shirt sale fundraiser back in my 2nd year. Countless hours were poured over that project, and I loved every moment of it (I challenge any other club in a professional school to raise over $3,000 with one fundraiser). I also loved debating with a fellow medical student (who also disliked medicine) about ways to improve the daily operations of the hospital, and how much time and money could be saved from various practical changes. I loved reading a study from a particular consulting company accounting for the details of the rising costs of healthcare in America. I analyzed each and every one of those seemingly boring tables and graphs to make sure no details were lost.

Thinking back to college, I did the bare minimum amount of studying for my biology and chemistry classes. However, I remember entire days spent writing code for the extra credit portion of a computer science project, or the late night hours that flew by drawing little neat colorful graphs for the economics assignment due the following week. I was pretty dedicated, just not in certain subjects, and unfortunately I chose to further pursue one of these subjects.

It wasn’t until third year that I truly realized I was not meant to be a doctor. I have the utmost respect for most of my colleagues and other future doctors out there, because at times it is a truly noble and rewarding work (although half of them are in it for the wrong reasons). However, I knew medicine wasn’t for me. My path lies elsewhere, and I’m extremely happy to have come to this realization. Now, the wisdom versus folly of my decision won’t be determined until later in the future. If I am successful people will say “Epson had the courage and foresight to quit medical school and pursue his passions.” If I fail to succeed, then they will say “he was a quitter, and that’s why he hasn’t gotten anywhere in this world.” Such is the nature of hindsight, our never erring judgemental master.

It is a little ironic that I was able to make this decision partly due to a patient I had back at the VA (Veteran’s Administration) Hospital at the beginning of my 3rd year. The patient was a 70-something year old Vietnam veteran with an incredibly colorful history (long story short, he was the captain of some unit in the war, and he was a POW for a while). I spent about an hour just sitting in his room chatting with him, and before I left he said to me “just remember, if you don’t like where you are or what you’re doing, get on a bus and go somewhere else and do something else.” Call it dumb blind coincidence, call it fate, call it a nudge from God - whatever it was, it was exactly what I needed to hear. And so here we are, a little over a year later, in the aftermath of all that’s happened during the trying times of 2007 that led ultimately to my departure from medicine.

There’s nothing quite like parental disappointment. Due to some family issues, I opted to wait until last week to tell my parents the news. It would have been so much easier if they were angry and yelled at me. Instead, anxiety and defeat were what I got. I was already overwhelmingly burdened by my mom’s anxieties over the news, but I nearly broke in half when I heard my dad’s voice over the phone. It was a voice I had never heard from him, sounding not unlike a patient when they quit the fight and give in to the inevitability of their disease. It was the sound of defeat. It tore me to the core.

I know my parents will recover from the trauma of the news. Life will return to normal as it always does, even if the scars of the past linger on. I am now faced with the daunting task of moving on, of trying to stick my foot into the door of this hazy world of “business.” At times I am confident that there is a future for me, as people of my training, background, and ability must be in high demand out there, especially at such a transitional time in healthcare both in the US as well as in Asia. Yet at other times, I am bogged down by the fear of failure, of the reality that people will be hiring me for my potential and not for what I can already bring to the table. What company out there would be willing to take a risk on someone without any practical skills? Or worse, take a risk on a quitter, regardless of how smart he might or might not be?

I hope and pray that this fear does not paralyze me in the coming weeks as I begin seriously searching for a definitive start to this new beginning. Exciting times lie ahead, although like I often say, excitement isn’t necessarily always a good thing. Regardless of what happens, I’m glad I made this choice. It was the right choice, even if hindsight disagrees.

Homer: "If You don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way."