This week was actually close to an ideal week worth of work and rest. I ended up being called in to help at Stanford for the SASI Summer program for pre-med students due to some last minute cancellations. The students (thankfully) were in high school and had an intensive 1 week course to get a taste for what clinical life was like. Unlike if I was teaching medical students, this meant I didn’t need to brush up on the different drugs used here and the slightly different protocols in effect. Whew!
The program required 2 presentations of the same thing: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This gave me ample time to be nervous for one session (I didn’t really get a heads up on what I was doing most days 😂) and refine it by the afternoon while also having hours in between to explore the gorgeous Stanford campus.
As someone who isn’t very comfortable public speaking, it made me unusually nervous given just how low stakes it was for me: this was going to have close to no impact on my “real” life. Now that it’s over, I’m glad the sequence happened as it did- it’s nice knowing that I now have enough clinical experience to be handed some random thing and that I know enough to make up a decent lesson plan on the fly.
I ended up taking the Friday lunchtime to go for Jummah prayer at a local mosque, but that meant missing the final day of SASI – it was going to be a simulated zombie apocalypse! Would’ve been fun to attend, but alas, I’m here to draw some boundaries on my work life. Interestingly, there is a lady who comes as a patient advocate for this course and SHE’S the one who said “Looks like you have some good boundaries with work”.
If only that were true…
I’ve settled into a very hermit-like life since I don’t really have any social obligations per-se. I tend to get up, go to the gym, do some online course and then think about food, go for a walk and then relax at home. I think if I did this for months on end, I might eventually get sick of it, but currently, its just so pleasant!
I did make myself explore a bit and went to San Francisco on the weekend. The train trip there is about an hour, but I really wanted to see if I could go to the Golden Gate bridge lookout WITHOUT taking an Uber.
Mission accomplished!
Managed to get there on a bus and take the following photos.
