.Cartesian dualism.

[nickhornby]

I am so excited, so excited at the thought of being trained to work with my hands.

I am terrified, so terrified that I have elected a life of working with both them and my brain, and not just with my brain alone.

It feels like I'm going against the grain of what I was brought into this world equipped to do best.

Comments

[stone_reader]

i wonder that about doctors all the time. not only do you have to be brilliant, you have to have, like, dexterity and stuff. it's like you have to be both captain of the basketball team and captain of the mathletes all at the same time.

[nickhornby]

Oh, Sandy. Always there when a simile is needed.

[rhealitycheck]

does this mean you want to go into surgery? [or would this be my ignorance about medecine speaking for itself?]

[nickhornby]

Not anti-surgery, but not planning to be trained specifically for surgery. It's more just that medicine, as much as our non-touchy culture wants to deny it, truly is about the laying on of hands. It's about starting IVs and giving immunizations and ventilating patients and dressing wounds and palpating abdomens and soothing fevered brows--all things which take some dexterity. Though many practitioners I know try to do as much of a verbal exam as possible, at some point, yes, you've got to touch your patient. Pretty hard to practice effectively without doing so.

[rhealitycheck]

hmm that's true. i never really made that connection before. but i'm sure it's a lot harder to tell what's wrong with a person without actually touching them... i mean there is only so much information you can get verbally and at least for myself as a patient, i do a really poor job explaining anything that's happening to my body [and i don't think i'm the only one that's guilty of that].

well, it warms the cockles of my heart to know that someday you will be a doctor (of something) that i can have faith in.