"If you knew this was your last day on Earth, how would you want to spend it?"

-Meredith Grey

 “I always said I’d be happier alone. I’d have my work, my friends; but someone in your life all the time? More trouble than it’s worth. Apparently, I got over it ( Read more... )

 “We’ve all heard the saying, it’s one of those things we learn in seventh grade science class: adapt or die. Adapting isn’t easy, though. You have to fight your competition, fend off their attacks. And sometimes, you have to kill. Do what you need to do to survive ( Read more... )

 “Germs, disease, toxins. Our bodies encounter dangers all the time, just beneath the surface; hidden. Whether you realize it or not, your body is constantly protecting itself. Every time you blink your eye, you wash away thousands of unwanted microbes. Breathe in too much unwanted pollen, and you sneeze. The body knows when it’s encountering ( Read more... )

 “After a trauma, your body is at it’s most vulnerable. Response time is critical. So you’re suddenly surrounded by people; doctors, nurses, specialists, technicians. Surgery is a team sport; everyone pushing for the finish line; putting you back together again. But surgery is a trauma in and of itself. And once it’s over, the real healing ( Read more... )

 “The brain is the human body’s most mysterious organ. It learns, it changes, it adapts. It tells us what we see, what we hear. It lets us feel love. I think it holds our soul. But no matter how much research we do, no one can really say how all that delicate gray matter inside our skull works. And when it’s hurt, when the human brain is ( Read more... )

 “Renegades, rule breakers, gangsters with scalpels. This is the way we like to think of ourselves. It makes us feel bad ass; sexy. Problem is, it’s not exactly true. At heart, we’re rule followers; sheep. We don’t break protocol, we follow it to a tee. Because if we don’t follow protocol, our patients die. And then we’re no longer bad ass ( Read more... )

 “Everyone figures doctors are the most responsible people they know. They hold lives in their hands, they’re not flakes! They don’t loose track of important details, or make stunningly bad judgment calls. Because that would be bad, right ( Read more... )

 “How much can you actually accomplish in an hour? Run an errand maybe, sit in traffic, get an oil change. When you think about it, an hourisn’t very long. 60 minutes, 3600 seconds. That’s it. In medicine though, an hour is often everything. We call it the “golden hour“. That magical window of time that can determine whether a patient lives ( Read more... )

 “One of the hardest lessons as a doctor is learning to prioritize. We’re trained to do all we can to save life and limb. But if cutting off a limb means saving a life, we learn to do it, without hesitation. It’s not an easy lesson to learn. And it always comes down to one question: What are the stakes? What do we stand to gain or lose? At ( Read more... )