The Gum Tree for 2004 September 21

About what you might ask? Well, being around pre-med students who are glazie-eyed dreamy about the future with all its money and prestige I see many of them come across the crossroads of getting into medical school. I am in an interesting position myself looking at the road I will take my family down for the rest of my life. The controversy is over how will I pay for medical school???, and the options are 1) Loan it and be a slave to the interest rate (which are pretty low right now), 2) go the military route and have the government pay it, and 3) do an MD/PhD. Well, my curiosity has been aroused as I perused the different medical school cataloges out East (Georgetown, George Washington, Albert Einstein, Jefferson) amoung others. The concern, all of these schools would cost me more than $30,000 a year in tuition alone. Well, I have been thinking about the military as an option. Almost all of my peers have looked down on that option for some reason or another. My logic is -- If I wanted to be rich, I would go to a two year program of how to extract wealth from others in a purely self-interest maximization way and then I would put it to practice. I also want to be with my family. The military (contrary to popular understanding) allows a much greater time to be spent with the family than the average doctor would normally have. There are many other reasons, but I think that at this point in my life I would like to graduate next year, and start getting paid for doing what I love right now as well as have the flexibility of taking up to five weeks off for my family throghout the year. Louise also wants to go to Australia more often and in the military we will be able to. It is an exciting time for me, and whatever I choose, it will be nice to start on my professional track. As for this week, Louise and I were a little tired and worn down yesterday. ...Flu like symptomes... The weather is beautiful and rainy, but the change wears me down. I also have some pretty important assignments due tommorrow, and that has caused a little stress (not too much though). I will be glad when thursday comes around and I will have some rest time.