scrubs

Ever since it came on, I've been a big fan of the show Scrubs. Initially, it was because it was just plain hilarious, and made for perfect casual TV whenever I happened to flip to it while channel surfing. Which, incidentally, happened alot in college thanks to Comedy Central (the only channel other than ESPN that our TV was ever tuned to) re-running old episodes, as far as I could tell, every second they weren't running the Daily Show/Colbert or South Park. However, when I started experiencing the hospital grind for myself, initially as a student and later as a hospital employee, it soon became abundantly clear that aside from documentaries, Scrubs was probably the most accurate medical show on TV, at least in terms of the characters and their relationships. The show was still funny as hell to me, but it simply took on added meaning.

That was when I was on the outside looking in. Now that I'm about 2 inches from the precipice that is medicine, rewatching the show on Netflix is a completely different experience. I still laugh, but the timbre of laughter is undoubtedly different. It's often uneasy and nervous - the kind of laugh you might overhear from a couple on their first date, where they are laughing because it's something to do, because it's something that they think is the appropriate reaction. It's the way self-serious dbags half-laugh at jokes made at their expense*. In any case, let's examine the main characters of the show. The protagonist, JD, is a self-absorbed loser who is impossible to take seriously (hence the comedy), constantly berated by everyone, including the janitorial staff, unable to hold on to a girl and essentially devoid of life outside the hospital.
 *This might indicate that I, in fact, am a d-bag. I'm OK with that.

[I might be OK with being a narcissistic loser if it meant I can 'jackhammer' Heather Graham though..]


[so ronery..]

[oh so ronery..]

Are the rest of the doctors much better? Hell no. JD's mentor, Dr. Cox, is an ultra-narcissistic, unstable, abusive, emotionally stunted borderline alcoholic with a clear anger issue.

[stress release]



[something many premeds can relate to]

JD's eventual girlfriend/loveforever Elliot is an insecure, sheltered neurotic, who, unlike JD, never even secures a modicum of respect from the senior medical staff. And though she initially starts off as a competitive gunner, (and that's gunner used correctly, to describe someone who sabotages others to get ahead) ultimately, and too starkly realistically, she realizes medicine is not a career that makes her happy.

The fact that she moves with JD away from Sacred Heart in the final season is further evidence that this career is no longer a priority for her. That leaves us, out of the main cast of doctors, Turk. He's probably the most normal and best-adjusted out of this group, and, perhaps not coincidentally, also the most successful - by the end of the series, he becomes the Chief of Surgery (which, one must note, must surely be an artifact of TV fiction - it's hard to imagine a department chief who would be barely over 30; still, the point stands). He is not without his flaws obviously, as this cliff-note rant of all of the above tl;dr points succinctly summarizes -

Still, he has what seems to be a good family life, derives great satisfaction from his job, and is altogether happy. For those of you keeping score, that's the first time that adjective has been used for any of the aforementioned characters. That's a 0.250 batting average. Only one of the four main doctors is actually happy with his life. The fact that he's a surgeon might be a relatively accurate reason for this - he can actually fix things, although in real life it would likely come at the expense of family time.

And there it is. Scrubs - hilarious, and terrifying. Like I said at the beginning, though there are obviously exaggerations for the purpose of making a good sitcom, the characters on this show as a whole ring very true. The question then, is which of these or the other ancillary characters am I? Which are you?

unicorns are jocks

The title of this post may confuse some (most?) of you. At least some of the four people that actually read this blog. Unicorns are jocks? WTF? Jocks are supposed to be all meatheaded and testosteroney and stuff! Unicorns are candy mountains and rainbows and shit! They're just a bunch of twinkle fairies, right? WRONG.

a twinkle fairy

Unicorns are beautiful. Their manes are flowy and rainbowy. When's the last time you saw a fat unicorn? Never. They're all buff and cut. They're fast. You know they're fast because they can fly around. You can't fly slow, that's just aerodynamics. No, you shut up, I'm gonna be a doctor so I know physics, OK? Unicorns are also strong. This is because they're obviously related to horses, which are strong animals. We don't measure engine output in dolphinpower, we measure it in horsepower. Because they're strong, majestic beasts. Unicorns, being their cousins, are undoubtedly also powerful. Except horses can only hurt you by kicking the shit out of you or trampling you. Unicorns can stab you the fuck to death with their sharp horns.

Speaking of horns, they're phallic. So unicorns are literally walking around with a giant dick on their heads. Pretty jock-y to me. Most importantly, you know unicorns are jocks because girls love them. In sum, unicorns- they're pretty, they're fast, they're strong and jacked, they're dickheads, and chicks dig them. Unicorns are fucking jocks.

unicorns are fucking jocks

the people you see in medical school interviews, pt. 2

Not to brag or anything,

 

My pose of humility

but I interviewed at several so-called "top schools" during my application cycle. This was, of course, a good thing. Interviewing in general, at any school whose existence is predicated upon actually graduating doctors (I'm looking at you, pirates of the Caribbean), is a good thing. But "top" schools also tend to give out a good amount of financial aid, and the high research activity in these schools matches my professional interests, exciting me further.

My professional interests

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess, depending on your view), interviewing at these places means one can run into the occasional uberpremed. If you've taken an intro to bio class, you've gotten to know the uberpremed. The uberpremed stops at nothing. S/he will ask questions to which s/he knows the answer, just to try to impress the professor, all the while the rest of the class sinks further into the seat while letting out a collective groan. Uberpremed doesn't care. To uberpremed, getting to medical school is the goal, and everything pales in comparison. I've noticed that uberpremeds also share one obsession - they all fucking love the white coat. They idolize it. They want it. They want to wear it everywhere, the way they wear their scrubs to class even though their bullshit clinical volunteering gig doesn't begin until 5 hours after class ends. They need it. It's a tangible, physical trophy, a beacon that shouts to the world, "Hey! I'm better than you!"

the uberpremed conception of the white coat - no there's no way you could just BUY this..

The somewhat ironic bit is that the short white coat, the ones medical students wear, as opposed to the long ones typically worn by physicians who have completed their intern year, indicates to everyone in the hospital that you're a clueless dolt who needs hand-holding. But let us not bother with cumbersome things like humility or a dose of reality. We return then, to our uberpremed friend, whom I encountered on the interview trail at one such top school. Let's call him Jerkoff. Because there's little else to do while twiddling your thumbs, we struck up a conversation

The discussion naturally steered towards a) how awesome Jerkoff was; b) how Jerkoff was a lock for this school; and c) how awesome Jerkoff thought it would be to get that white coat. Oh yes, Jerkoff was fucking stoked about the white coat. Our conversation then turned to transportation, and I brought up how convenient a motorcycle or scooter would be in a city, as compared to a car, which has to be parked. He agreed, and then went a bit further. And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, I've learned from Jerkoff the ultimate wet dream, the amalgamation of all that is cool, the holy grail of awesome in the world of uberpremeds everywhere -

the people you see in medical school interviews

Applying to medical school is a pretty stressful process. Actually, even getting to the point where you can apply to medical school is a pretty stressful process, and plenty, if not the majority, never make it even to this stage. You can imagine, then, that when you get your invitation, a real, hot-off-the-presses-definitely-not-a-hoax invite to come in for an interview at a real, not-in-a-3rd-world-country, will-actually-give-you-a-degree, might-even-help-you-score-chicks med school, it's a pretty exciting situation. So I got excited.

Approximation of my got-an-invite look

Like any professional interview, I expected to dress well. Not three-piece-custom-armani-look-at-my-shiny-watch-and-shoes-i-have-a-small-penis well, but well enough to be presentable. You know, as nice as a poor student can be reasonably expected to dress. To me, that's a wool suit I've had since high school, which still fits me quite well. To wit-

Not rocket science. Or brain surgery, for that matter. It was therefore extremely mind-boggling and somewhat reassuring that for whatever reason (weird fashion sense destroying disorder? alien abduction? rebellion against the white judeochristian heteronormative medical establishment?) a sizable chunk of the premed population, despite (because?) withstanding the aforementioned stressful winnowing process, is somehow incapable of dressing themselves like adults. This disorder/abduction-related-trauma/sticking-it-to-the-man phenomenon apparently affects men and women alike. Being the scientist that I am, I tried observing these subjects. Because they obviously don't give a fuck about growing up, I dubbed them the Tinkerbells. There are many common archetypes that Tinkerbells seem to draw on. For example, there's everyone's favorite, the way-low-cut-shirt-that-over-accentuates-your-rack variety -

what, you don't think I drew her hot enough? go fuck yourself.

But these are the easy targets. I can write a whole book about Tinkerbellian archetypes. I think this post is best served by discussing the true wizards, the obvious Imperial Dragons of the Order of Tinkerbells. Before I introduce the first, in case you didn't know, apparently men's suit jackets are not supposed to be buttoned all the way. The bottom-most button is supposed to be left open. Why? Who the fuck knows. Probably some British royal left it open by accident after taking a quick leak or whatever and everyone decided that was super in.

I'm inbred!!

Anyway, many people dress that way, and it's considered a standard/proper way to dress. So this first wizard obviously was told by someone that you shouldn't button all the buttons. Too bad he understood that to mean -

Yes. This sorcery apparently was promulgated by this prophet of fashion genius, because I've seen this more than once during interviews. Nice. This however, is more or less a subtle error, provided a freak feed-the-bird accident left you blind in one eye or something. Less forgivable is an obviously higher ranking Tinkerbell, who decided this was excellent interview attire -

No I didn't draw it wrong or exaggerate in any way. Yes, her skirt was a fucking onion. It was kind of a magical onion, in that it poofed way the hell out yet managed to come right back in, in a perfect ellipsoid, ending just about halfway up her thighs. The amazing thing is that it had no apparent internal structure, because I would think that the laws of physics would dictate that there needs to be some kind of system of girders to maintain that form; of course, that's a silly thought anyway, because, like I said, this skirt was straight up magic. Other than that, and other than her orange stabby heels and crazy hair, she was perfectly normal looking. Still, the king of all Tinkerbells, Tinkerbell Prime, if you will, was a guy I met at my state school's interview day. I have a hard time describing everything, so I've summarized the bigger details -

I'm not going to dilute the above image with further explanation, except to add that the shirt was misbuttoned too, you know like you did in 2nd grade because your sense of symmetry was off and you didn't quite realize that there is a fucking hole for each button on the goddamn shirt.

So what was I talking about? Oh yes, dressing like an adult. Come on guys and girls, it's not that hard. Let's work on this. Doctors are supposed to be at least not stupid. Guys - suit, decently tied tie, properly buttoned up shirt (who knew this needed mentioning), long dress socks, shoes. I mean, it's that simple. I'm a certified moron and even *I* can dress myself properly. And while I'm on the subject, black is for funerals.

Just saying..