Cognitive dissonance (i've been running across this phrase for awhile...)
I've realized that since starting medical school I've stopped thinking. Does that make sense? and does that scare anyone besides me? Doctors dont think. I think we all start out thinking...but in the end we forget how. they swallow ideas and flow charts wholesale and regurgitate exactly as prescribed by their positivist paradigm. I dont reflect anymore on ideas or question what is given to me. I focus so much on absorbing immense amounts of information (from the descending pathways in the nervous system to the origins and paths of the 12 (13) cranial nerves in the head and neck) that I dont stop to think about anything else going on around me. It's irrelevant. These days I read the news the same way, skim for important info, store data, and once in awhile I will retrieve data about events around the globe but i have neither processed it or critiqued it. Patients arent people, they're bags of symptoms and syndrome that HAVE to fit into certain clinical categories. Patient has a, b, and c therefore i do d, e, and f and prescribe expensive meds for treating disease X. It bugs me that there doesnt seem to be a way around "how medicine is done". Why do I feel that there is a disconnect btwn my Health Inequities course and my Neurology class. We want to put people in place and time, in socioeconomic context, in their personal narratives, but we cant seem to do that AND practice medicine as well. The two encompase divergent pathways of thought and action. So what do i do? To pass med school and get licensed i need to be a proper "doctor" but to be a true doctor to my patients I need to be a whole different person...argh....i dont even have time beyond this blog to think about this. I'm off once again to study more neuroanatomy and review enzyme kinetics with a friend of mine. ¶ 13:41