A Thanksgiving Epiphany

A funny thing happened during my Thanksgiving break.

I had flown up to Utah to see my in-laws, leaving behind the cozy mid-60s and sun of Arizona for the frigid Arctic chill of 18-degree blizzard conditions. If you ever saw the movie Cool Runnings and remember the scene when the Jamaican bobsledders got their first look at Canadian winter at the Calgary airport... that was us.

Anyway, a flag football game with a gang of 20-something relatives that would leave me wheezing bravely and (yes) bloodied awaited me in the future. So did a 38-person Thanksgiving dinner held in a gymnasium - and that wasn't even a third of the extended family we could have had in attendance.

But as we drove north of Salt Lake City, I found myself looking at signs. Not fast food signs, not gas station signs, not billboards - I was trying to find medical signs.

Urgent Care. Primary Care. Physical Therapy. Podiatry. Occupational Therapy.

I caught myself doing it, and I marveled how in six weeks of working at Midwestern University I had already started to internalize this new milieu (that word is for Courtney and Karen, who tease me about my word selection) in which I find myself.

It was at once strange and actually kind of fun to wonder how many of those working in these fields might have come from a school like Midwestern University. I wondered how many of the family care practices I saw were staffed by D.O. graduates.

Maybe this makes me a little crazy. I don't know, maybe I am a little crazy. Anyone who saw me yell happily when I won those movie tickets at the MWU Thanksgiving brunch would probably agree with that assessment. I think, though, that I was just enjoying being part of this new environment. I think it's a good thing that my interest in the medical profession has gotten to the point where I think of doctors and residents and med students as "we" and "us" instead of "them."

Not to say that I'm ready to observe a class with cadavers, but for me this is real progress. Baby steps, right?