College Days and Geeky Ways
Gamma and Gampa both went to Vanderbilt University. It's where they met and fell love. My Dad is Vanderbilt alumnus as well. I guess you could say it's a Carter family tradition. It was just sort of expected that I'd follow in their footsteps. As one of the top 10 premed schools in the country, I was happy to show my family allegiance and apply. My entire family, Mom and Dad included, were happy to know I would be earning my degree from this prestigious university.
Being away from home wasn't as difficult as people led me to believe. I guess the kind of traveling my family did when I was a kid and all the traveling my parents did in my teens, helped to prepare me for the separation. I ambitiously undertook a double major of Biology and Chemistry and buried my nose in my books. Yes, I was that geek kid that was forever in the library studying.
It was a comfortable place for me to be. For the first time, I felt like I was living my own life my own way. I was doing what I wanted to do, not what my family dictated that I should do. It was the first really freeing experience of my life. I stayed in a dorm that was designated for premed kids. We were a studious group that didn't have time for the wild college life others talk about so nostalgically.
Just because I wasn't into the wild parties and bar hoping that so many college kids engage in, doesn't mean I didn't manage to find a little time for some recreational fun. In my Junior year, there was one biology class I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn't the subject matter, it was the TA. In class, her hair was always twisted up in one of those clip things and she had the prettiest blue eyes. I actually feigned stupidity and went up to her after class to ask for help. She agreed to do some private tutoring. We met in the library, but ended up in my dorm room. I pulled loose the clip and her hair came spilling down, long, blonde, beautiful hair. Oh she was one hell of a sexy woman. She taught me biology like no one else ever has. She continued to "tutor" me until the end of the term when she completed her doctoral degree and left to go work for the CDC in Atlanta.
I returned to pouring myself into my textbooks and labs. The diligent study paid off. Even though they weren't crazy about my being premed, Gamma and Gampa beamed with pride when I graduated summa cum laude. It was a huge accomplishment that I achieved through self discipline and a tremendous amount of hard work. I was proud to graduate with honors and it was great to be able to share that with my grandparents. It hurt like hell that my parents were not able to be there to share it with me though. Understanding their behavior was still years away.
The rigorous undergraduate academics helped prepare me for the MCATs where I also scored well. It gave me the luxury of deciding where I wanted to go to medical school instead of settling for the medical school that would have me. I could have gone to Yale or Harvard or any other Ivy League school of my choice, but I wanted to go back to Chicago. That sounds a bit morbid right? My parents had all but abandoned me and all I wanted was to go back home? I missed Gamma. I missed our kitchen conversations, I missed the hot chocolate she would make me on snowy winter afternoons, I missed her counsel. Four years away, I had done quite a bit of growing up, becoming my own person and felt I was ready to go back home.
I chose the University of Chicago not only because it was close to home, but because the school places great emphasis on the diversity of its students. My peers would cross racial, cultural and religious boundaries, increasing my social awareness, preparing me for the various people I would serve in my professional career. I wanted to help all people, not just people who look like me. A lot of the medical students are placed at Cook County General Hospital. It's a hospital that serves a very diverse community. I felt it would provide a solid foundation for the kind of medicine I wanted to practice.
I thought I was prepared for the long and grueling course work and schedules demanded by medical school, but even I was surprised by how much more effort it took just to keep up. A typical day required something between 12-15 hours dedicated to the study of medicine. The amount of detailed and intricate information you must assimilate, retain, recall and apply in order to understand your class material and lectures and do your labs is daunting, but it's the same information you'll need to diagnosis and treat your patients. You don't want to kill anyone, so you put in whatever effort is necessary commit it all to memory.
Now living at home, med school was a rather therapeutic way for me to deal with my dysfunctional family. I was so focused on learning all that I needed to, that I didn't pay much attention to the clock or the calendar. Holidays and weekends would pass for me like any other day. I just kept working at my studies. Late hours in the lab or library were not a problem for me. I didn't feel lonely or sorry for myself, I didn't worry about the fact that my parents weren't around much or that they were disinterested in my chosen career, I didn't have the time or energy for it.
For six years, I worked damn hard at learning, at absorbing information, learning how to put it together and pull it part, figure out how it all creates the balance and function of the human body. Finally at long last, I was ready to put it all into practice. I was ready to start my rotations.