You see some crazy stuff in the Emergency Department, and every now and then a good film on a Saturday night...

The T (subway car) smelled like hard alcohol... it was the last one of the night, which meant it was just before 1am, and filled with a lot of people leaving the bars and heading home to skip out on paying for a cab fare. I just got out of seeing the movie "Waiting for Superman," a documentary about our public school system, the impacts of teachers unions, politics, effective teaching, social issues including income levels and neighborhoods surrounding schools... and a lot more... and how this is all affecting the education of kids in our country...

It was very well done, told engaging and powerful stories, and sent many necessary messages, but it was also incredibly frustrating and sad to be reminded that education is not equal in the U.S. Not every student has access to a great education, and the repercussions of that affect all of society. I'm not going to get into the details, I want to go to bed and it's late, so instead I'll say you should definitely see this film.

This movie reminded me of why I'm here in Boston studying more often than not, and spending my weekends in the library... because like education, health care is not equally delivered in this country. Both systems are broken, and I've spent most of my adult life engaged in both of them. During the last couple days in the emergency department I've seen a toe nearly cut off by a chainsaw, metastatic lung cancer so far developed that an untrained eye like myself can immediately see it on an xray, infected hands that require multiple operations to clean out, broken bones, chest pain, heart attacks, head injuries, people without homes who drink so much they arrive unresponsive, and a lot more... This experience is amazing, thrilling to be a part of, and a privilege to learn from, but I wonder, when I become a physician, what will I be doing to change the system, to have a positive effect on the patients who don't have the resources to be treated and don't have the voice to advocate for themselves... Luckily I'm in my first year and have plenty of time to figure it all out (I need to put more worry into passing my exams before I try to save the world), but I'm still not sure how I'll do this.

In the mean time, I'll be mildly upset and frustrated that the Huskies are about to lose to Arizona... not cool.