I’m currently listening to the Q&A session after a Big Data Analytics talk in the Grand Ballroom here at the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Annual Meeting at the McCormick Place in Chicago. As a medical resident with an MPH and health economic and statistics training and someone who helped perform lab error analysis during my PGY1 year that culminated in a poster presentation at this meeting last year, I found this series of talks very interesting. I feel re-inspired. What I mean by this statement is this…I often find myself in intellectual laziness slumps and I need experiences like these to recharge – to find other people with similar interests who want to participate in such discussions and who can also support us through those times when we are uninspired (or lazy, which can depend on point of view).
I’m just over halfway through my residency training. I’m also preparing materials and gathering letters of recommendations to apply to fellowships very soon. I also have peripheral thoughts of needing to start studying for boards, but that’s lower on my list after fellowship applications and publication submissions that I’ve put off writing for far too long. It’s easy during this long journey to become overwhelmed in addition to uninspired or lazy.
During the day, I work hard to approach my residency service tasks because patient care seems more imminently involved. But I need to get back to devoting one day during the weekend on non-service but also important residency-related tasks on my things-to-do checklist because despite how it may seem, I’m also passionate about them as well. What gets me more excited than networking at conferences such as these, is the opportunity to talk with experts about shared interests and possible collaborative projects…or at least the start of a friendship/mentorship where we can help each other move our healthcare system forward.
On another note, at the end of the week, after AACC is over, I will remain in Chicago to serve as the junior (resident) member of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Council on Education (COE). I’m looking forward to our Friday night meeting dinner where we also have discussions that re-energize me as well in terms of working together to transform our profession for the better. I always feel privileged to be able to “pick the brains” of others who are intimately and actively involved in this endeavor over the casual setting of a delicious meal.
So, are you in an intellectual slump? If you need encouragement, feel free to email me at chungbm@rwjms.rutgers.edu and I hope to pay it forward and help you out of your slump or connect (I’ve always been a consummate “connector”…a quality from my grassroots organizing days, I suppose) you with mentors who might inspire you. If you are going to be in Chicago in early September, I also recommend that you attend the CAP Residents Forum on September 9, 2014 – you can register at www.thepathologistsmeeting.org or better yet, contact Jan Glas, head of resident engagement for CAP, at jglas@cap.org to become your program’s delegate and/or volunteer to serve on the credentialing committee and sign in delegates who attend the RF in September.
-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.
Lablogatory 