I haven't kept up with my regular blogging schedule for the past month or two because much of my free time has been dedicated to preparing for a speaking engagement. Last year, one of my 18 for 2018 to-do items was to be interviewed on a podcast; this year, I decided to step it up a notch and make …
Advice I Give To Rotating Medical Students
Despite being an anesthesiologist at a tertiary academic center, my faculty appointment only requires that I spend less than 10% of my time teaching. While this provides the benefit of not having to work overnight or weekend shifts, I do miss out on teaching our anesthesiology residents. Thus, the …
Building My Emotional Bank Account
On a recent busy morning, I was packing lunches and gear to spend a half-day at the climbing gym on the other side of town, all while getting myself dressed, scrolling through my email, eating an avocado and drinking coffee. Suddenly she became fussy and restless, signaling that we need to get …
Controlling the things I can control
My eye twitch is back. That nagging flutter of my left outer eyelid last reared its ugly, annoying head during the sleep-deprived days of third year anesthesia residency and ICU call nights. Before that, I remember its presence while frantically finishing laboratory experiments and writing my …
Book Review: Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin
"Changing a habit may be simple, but it's not easy, and the more tools used, the better." - Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before Former New York lawyer turned happiness expert Gretchen Rubin constructed her first book The Happiness Project from blog posts framed around a year-long challenge of …
Dear Dawn: How do you decide on a specialty?
I got this comment on one of my blog posts and decided to turn it into a "Dear Dawn" post: "Thank you for your wonderful weblog and wise words! Sorry if I'm commenting where I shouldn't be, but I wasn't sure where to ask this question. I'm just a med student but I noticed you're an …