When We All Fall Asleep
Do you know this person?
No. She’s not a psychiatric patient.
She’s Billie Eilish, a music artiste who owns the Grammy-winning album '“When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
If you think about it, where do we actually go?
Dreamland? An empty void? Nowhere?
I don’t actually know.
What I know is that I’ll not be answering the question in this issue of Ultimos Dias.
If you’re new here, my name is Chimfoun and this is my private newsletter where I write about my last days in medical school.
There’s currently no frequency to this but if you come back every Saturday, you may find a new issue.
This issue has no particular theme like the last but I want to write about something that concerns us medics.
Let’s get started.
Medicine is a Jealous Course
This was a phrase that was communicated over and over to me when I began medical school.
The idea behind this phrase is borrowed from Exodus 20:3-5
3 You must not worship any other gods except me.
4 You must not make any idols. Don’t make any statues or pictures of anything up in the sky or of anything on the earth or of anything down in the water.
5 Don’t worship or serve idols of any kind, because I, the Lord, am your God. I hate my people worshiping other gods. People who sin against me become my enemies, and I will punish them. And I will punish their children, their grandchildren, and even their great-grandchildren.
Focus on the following:
You must not worship any other gods except me.
I hate my people worshiping other gods. People who sin against me become my enemies, and I will punish them. And I will punish their children, their grandchildren, and even their great-grandchildren.
Now let me rephrase it to what medical professors, lecturers, and students believe in:
You MUST NOT do any other thing when you’re in medical school
I hate my people doing other things. People who do this become my enemies, and I will punish them. They will never become doctors because they will never do well in their academics.
If you’re thinking of entering medical school, this is your memo to “dead that thought” especially if you think of doing other things asides medicine.
However, I’ll be going against my personal beliefs if I let you to do that.
While I agree that medicine is a jealous course, I believe you can be a medical student and “something else” especially in this current time but, it is not easy.
It depends on your ability to achieve balance.
I was invited to speak about this last year and I'm glad I was able to help some people see the light.
You can watch the replay of the event.
Bringing this back to Últimos Días, as I approach my final exams in medical school, I need a high level of focus in order for me to prepare adequately.
This led to a lot of necessary but painful decisions I had to make in the last one week.
To keep this short, I'll just outline them below:
I put in a resignation at my place of work. I am due to leave by the end of this month.
I paused a major project we were meant to launch in June from my brand, ONELAD. Would resume it once I become a doctor.
I changed the frequency of our popular business offering, Show Up Keep Up Challenge. It would now hold once in every quarter as opposed to the monthly occurrence. The next edition will begin on 2nd July.
From the end of June till I graduate, I will reject any external commitments and drastically reduce the existing and internal commitments I have.
I have to prepare about 3 - 5 digital products before June end that I'll be promoting from July when I go under the radar so that I'll not go broke 👀.
In my time away, I'll use any leisure I have to learn. Learn more about AI. Learn more about health. Learn more about running a media business. Learn more about my “important” curiosities.
It was difficult to reach these final decisions and I am still trying to adjust to the reality that will follow their implementation.
At the end of the day, I believe they'll be worth it and I'll get the final reward - my MBBS certificate.
So help me God.
My Week in Pictures
Updates on my Preparation
My last update was that I was taking part in the Show Up Keep Up Challenge to enable me read one topic a day.
It is working well for me so far. But I am not at the speed I want to run with for my reading plan.
I plan to read Preventive and Social Medicine for this month, Internal Medicine in June, Surgery in July. August till my exams is going to be for thorough revision.
Going forward, I will increase my speed and coverage so I can accomplish the plan for this month while keeping up with my reading challenge.
That will be all for this issue.
See you in the next!