“This would be great to build your CV” = academic bulls**t for “Free labour”

what’s in a name?

When people ask me if I will be taking my fiance’s last name after we get married, they usually assume that when I say, “No”, that it’s some girlbossification thing because “he didn’t go to med school” or whatever.

It’s really not…

For me, my partner has been with me through every struggle of my medical education and career from the very beginning. As far as I’m concerned, he’s earned part of this MD with me. He’s the reason I was able to earn it in the first place.

No… I won’t be changing my last name because of the systemic misogyny that makes it so freaking hard to do so! It takes so much paperwork and so many fees for my national and provincial licensing bodies, my professional associations, and so on and so forth… the massive number of barriers just means it’s not worth it. This system caters to cisgendered, heterosexual Eurocentric white men, who are never expected to change their names.

My last name carries a lot of my family’s history and it means a lot to me; being a doctor is only one part of who I am and if I chose to change my last name, being a doctor should not be an active barrier… but it is.

(As a side note: my fiance has considered changing his last name to mine… but because of the same red tape… we will probably not be doing that.)

I am a medical student from a developing country in Southeast Europe, the average monthly wages here are around 420 euros. The education system incomparable to the american or  european system, the literature we use is so outdated that our diploma is not recognised outside our county. But we want to be as equally good doctors. Therefore, we try using foreign books and online resources but you know these things usually have a price and my family cannot afford to pay  for my ‘non-university-required’. /optional study materials. I am in my clinical years of med school and I have found the OnlineMedEd videos very useful but I can not afford the OME notes. May ask if anyone could be willing to share the onlinemeded notes pdf with me. I would be really grateful. Sorry for taking your time.  please if you can and want help me. Thank you in advance!

the-people-of:

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I have a plan. I have many plans. It would be so easy, since I’m in the hospital so often. Ugh. No one would know. Nor would they care.

I am not healthy. Not mentally at least. I can’t stop thinking about different ways I could kill myself. I thought I was done with it, and now I’m back in it.

Every single day, it occupies my mind. What I could do. And nothing sticks into my head anymore. I study the same things over and over and over. I’m running around this damn drain and it’s sinking and pulling me down while the swim is futile. There’s no point. 

I try to go to the gym, which is on the fourth floor of my building. It looks out into the city, but I can’t help but constantly think - I could jump off the ledge. I’d make sure to land on my head, but that wouldn’t be a sure kill, would it? I’d need to so something else. 

I have rope. I could hang myself. Jump off the ledge and with enough force, break my neck. But if something screw up, I might just end up with a sprained neck. 

I’d need to find a gun. It shouldn’t be so hard in Chicago. People say I’m crazy for riding my bike where I do in the night. But, you know what? I really don’t care. There’s a big part of me now that doesn’t care if I get shot, or, better yet, get killed. 

I’m constantly thinking - who would miss me? 

Who? Who in the long run would miss me? What have I done that isn’t replacable? 

The answer: no one would miss me. It’ll be sad and tragic for a bit. But in the long run, I don’t matter. I don’t contribute anything to anyone. I never have, I’m not someone’s rock, I’m not that person people go to talk to. 

I’m a lie. I’m a fake. My smiles are empty. My laughs are echos of those around me. I reflect what people see because that’s what they want to see and feel - they take it mainly as sympathy and empathy. I know what to say to make someone feel better. I will listen, I will make small talk. I will distract. 

I’ve learned to fake so much of “my” feelings, I don’t have any of my own. I just fake feelings. I fake studying. I fake having friends. I want them but don’t trust them. I will never trust.  As a medical student, I don’t feel much of anything inside. And that.. 

that’s just plain sad. 

I can’t feel anything. My therapist said “fake it till you make it." 

Well. I can’t… fake it.. any more. I’m just so, damn tired. 

is that I am replaceable. 

The things I do can easily be done by someone else. My work doesn’t matter. 

My life doesn’t matter. 

Interviews and residency is such a farce - everyone grabbing and clawing and faking their way for the spots. If one doesn’t get it, there’s someone to take their spot.

I am unimportant. Me disappearing would be akin to losing a molecule of water from the Pacific. It would be so easy to. And yet, so hard. Struggling to hold on.