Flip flops, jellyfish, sushi and salad
Disclaimer: Correct my misconceptions bred in ignorance if you don't see the monster for what it is.
A new sort of life has been splayed before me, open only for one kind of interpretation; a pork cutlet that can assume only one shape. I have some clue why it is that this new realization makes my skin shift from under me, makes my hair stand on end as if they were afraid of being razed if they didn't, makes me grow gooseflesh when I am neither cold nor suffering from an opiod withdrawal. But I still haven't learnt enough.
It was made known to me that if I'd wanted the personal audience of any faculty member at the 7000 building here in Miami, that I was to come dressed accordingly. Roughly translated: if I were to wear flip flops, a respectable, holeless shirt that covered certain parts of my body, which by convention would be shameful to show, and a pair of jeans that would also cover certain parts deemed shameful, I would be sent home with my tail between my legs. It is not the mere fact of what the medical profession demands that raises such alarm. It is not even the fact that I do not mind this mindless exterior held up by a tradition of ostentation that is the hallmark of the medical profession in the Western world, a thing it prides itself in obtaining as a badge of courage, if it were that, that we in the profession are asked to uphold as a rite to passage. It is not even for the fact that a lay person eyes a "properly professionally" dressed individual with a sort of reverence undeserving of the person wearing the monkey suit or that he demands this facade of professionalism with no thought or regard as to the content of structure behind the facade. The mindless mob.
First impression counts. Dress to the ninth in a three piece suit and a tie, with matching cufflinks and a tie pin. Add in a pink carnation for good measure and alligator leather shoes that you can eat off and then turn around and prescribe Viagra and Vioxx to the mob bosses in exchange for personal favors. Is this what professionalism is supposed to be? These doctors were dressed professionally. I laud them for their impeccable fashion sense so they can hide behind what they haven't got - integrity. A fit fodder for the media, crazy bent on slaughtering and sacrificing every medical professional lamb they can get their hands on, so as to set an example, a burning cross, a hanging body, for all to see and not to follow. They were setting themselves up from the very conscious step when someone in medical school told them to "dress professionally" and they obeyed, without thought or consequence because there was none; an empty piñata. What puzzles me is why we continue to give them the ammunition they need to justify this war that has no justification?
No matter how you dress it, a salad is a salad; romaine lettuce, mustard greens, broccoli, carrots. Red wine vinaigrette makes it only more palatable, not necessarily more digestible. A potato cannot be a carrot, just like a broccoli cannot stand in for cauliflower. And most certainly, jellyfish cannot pass for sushi. Similarly, an institution cannot teach integrity; no one can teach it neither can it be bought or sold. It can only help you dress up and hide the lack of it. It never seizes to amaze me the lengths at which the medical profession seeks to make much ado about nothing, as if bells and whistle, frills and glitter can represent something quite so frill-less.
I despise the idea of labels, arbitrary monuments of self importance erected for the benefit of others who will be shown how high one has climbed, how far one has reached, how wide one has conquered. But here it is, unavoidable, inescapable. I am being lumped into the mass of shapeless clay and therein lies, perhaps, my Chinese water torture. Hopefully, I will retain enough of me, recognizable bits that will be spat out whole. Bitter is not a good taste in the mouth and bitter cannot know what it is like to be sweet, hence palatable.
What have I gotten myself into?
A new sort of life has been splayed before me, open only for one kind of interpretation; a pork cutlet that can assume only one shape. I have some clue why it is that this new realization makes my skin shift from under me, makes my hair stand on end as if they were afraid of being razed if they didn't, makes me grow gooseflesh when I am neither cold nor suffering from an opiod withdrawal. But I still haven't learnt enough.
It was made known to me that if I'd wanted the personal audience of any faculty member at the 7000 building here in Miami, that I was to come dressed accordingly. Roughly translated: if I were to wear flip flops, a respectable, holeless shirt that covered certain parts of my body, which by convention would be shameful to show, and a pair of jeans that would also cover certain parts deemed shameful, I would be sent home with my tail between my legs. It is not the mere fact of what the medical profession demands that raises such alarm. It is not even the fact that I do not mind this mindless exterior held up by a tradition of ostentation that is the hallmark of the medical profession in the Western world, a thing it prides itself in obtaining as a badge of courage, if it were that, that we in the profession are asked to uphold as a rite to passage. It is not even for the fact that a lay person eyes a "properly professionally" dressed individual with a sort of reverence undeserving of the person wearing the monkey suit or that he demands this facade of professionalism with no thought or regard as to the content of structure behind the facade. The mindless mob.
First impression counts. Dress to the ninth in a three piece suit and a tie, with matching cufflinks and a tie pin. Add in a pink carnation for good measure and alligator leather shoes that you can eat off and then turn around and prescribe Viagra and Vioxx to the mob bosses in exchange for personal favors. Is this what professionalism is supposed to be? These doctors were dressed professionally. I laud them for their impeccable fashion sense so they can hide behind what they haven't got - integrity. A fit fodder for the media, crazy bent on slaughtering and sacrificing every medical professional lamb they can get their hands on, so as to set an example, a burning cross, a hanging body, for all to see and not to follow. They were setting themselves up from the very conscious step when someone in medical school told them to "dress professionally" and they obeyed, without thought or consequence because there was none; an empty piñata. What puzzles me is why we continue to give them the ammunition they need to justify this war that has no justification?
No matter how you dress it, a salad is a salad; romaine lettuce, mustard greens, broccoli, carrots. Red wine vinaigrette makes it only more palatable, not necessarily more digestible. A potato cannot be a carrot, just like a broccoli cannot stand in for cauliflower. And most certainly, jellyfish cannot pass for sushi. Similarly, an institution cannot teach integrity; no one can teach it neither can it be bought or sold. It can only help you dress up and hide the lack of it. It never seizes to amaze me the lengths at which the medical profession seeks to make much ado about nothing, as if bells and whistle, frills and glitter can represent something quite so frill-less.
I despise the idea of labels, arbitrary monuments of self importance erected for the benefit of others who will be shown how high one has climbed, how far one has reached, how wide one has conquered. But here it is, unavoidable, inescapable. I am being lumped into the mass of shapeless clay and therein lies, perhaps, my Chinese water torture. Hopefully, I will retain enough of me, recognizable bits that will be spat out whole. Bitter is not a good taste in the mouth and bitter cannot know what it is like to be sweet, hence palatable.
What have I gotten myself into?
posted by Hello, this is McKWong MD at 1:31 PM
1 Comments:
You take life too seriously
Post a Comment
<< Home