peace court

the german word for cemetery, 'friedhof', literally translates as 'peace court'. i wonder if it's the same in Yiddish.
In 2003, when I was studying in Berlin, I took a course on Berlin in literature. It was a German lit course on literature written about Berlin, mostly 20th century, both prose and poetry. And because we were in Berlin, we would frequently take our lecture outside. We would wander the streets of Hackesher Markt, sit in cafes around Oranienburgerstrasse, and talk about Brecht and Nabokov writing about 'their' city. We would also go to cemeteries.
Walking around cemeteries, as i learned, is a thing in Europe. People go and visit famous graves, take strolls in the peace and serenity, have candle parades on the day of the dead (something i witnessed in Slovenia). A completely weird idea at first, i got over it during our class field trips. We would walk around quiet and empty alleys of some old Berliner cemetery, wet and cold from the rain. we would talk literature and history, and how history was literally laid out in front of us: famous poets, merchants, speakers. old abandoned gravestones, old inscriptions in literary german. it was always serene and fascinating, and a bit voyeuristic, like we were intruding, breaking in on someone else's quiet and abandon. but it brought things that were far and forgotten into now, through the cold and wet, through the things we were reading.
today i am reminded of that, walking through the past, through the old jewish cemetery. Just like then, it is chilly and wet. the gravestones stand like a forest of trees, with the real trees taking over, intertwined, obstructing, adn destroying any last remnant of order. i'm walking on a thick layer of leaves and the ground is soft, carpeted with shed life. it's eerie since i dont know if the soft is just the leaves, or if the ground is caving and your foot is about to go through an old grave. i look at the gravestones, some of the inscriptions in yiddish, some half erased with time. unfamiliar names, dates going back to 1924, 1938, 1976, and i can't help but think if those before 1941 are the lucky ones. some of the graves have added place-holders: empty name plaques for those 'killed on the front'. tombstones are in various stages of broken, victim to fallen branches. it's quiet, there is no one here, haven't been here in decades, occasional visitor stumbling and climbing to find one's path. the nature has been taking over for years, life is taking over the dead.
and suddenly, it's real, and it's now. her grave, brand new, fresh, and unblemished by the elements sticks out. there is no name or picture, just fresh flowers--yellow, purple, white mums. seasonal and they remind me of chrysanthemums i got her two years ago from an old lady in the subway, just because. i take out the stone from my pockets and lay it down. she would always yell at her mother: "jews don't bring flowers! jews bring stones! flowers die, stones are eternal!" it's weird to know she's here among these flowers in the cold. and for the first time, i'm crying.

surviving MS3 year: helpful tips

Congratulations! you have made it to third year of medical school. You can happily peel your face away from the giant books and anatomy lab bodies and enter the world of clinical medicine. The next two years will introduce you not only to real patients, but to very particulars of medicine itself. As a medical student, your responsibilities are few, adn just a few crucial things can make a difference between success adn total failure, so here are a few tips.
Follow instructions. Don't overthink it, don't try to clarify and imagine you are being asked to do something difficult and grand. The instructions are just as easy as they seem, so just do it. Dont' ask too many questions, just do it. And always be on time.
Be helpful. Your team works hard, you do not. Make yourself useful and help out. Any little thing you can do is tremendously helpful. If you're standing there feeling helpless and awkward, you probably are, so just follow along with what others are doing. Always ask if there is anything you can help with. If you can't, just get coffee: your residents can always use more coffee.
Be efficient. If you're taking too long to complete a task, you are being useless, which directly contradicts the above rule. Hurry up, no one will care about your careful detailed family history, when you're presenting a man who had cut his finger and is at risk for bleeding to death while you take your sweet time.
Pretend to care. You dont' actually need to care, you just have to pretend that you do. Unfortunately, you have to rotate through many different specialties, even the ones you have no interest in joining. If blood grosses you out and you're stuck in GenSurg, but you'd rather spend your day rounding in mental masturbation looking for a neuro lesion like 'where is waldo?", pick up the suction and follow the instruments. Your help will be noted. Alternatively, if old people and infants gross you out, and you'd rather be digging out someone's butt abscess, look alert and pretend that children are the best, ever.
There is such thing as a stupid question. If you begin your sentence with 'this might be a stupid question', it probably is. fight the urge to ask that question. think before you speak, and really, fight it hard.
Stop looking for zebras. Yes, you have spent many hours reading books and learning from them. but common things are common, so if you are facing a sweaty pale breathless overweight man, relax. He probably does not have a pheochromocytoma, he is probably just hot.
Listen. When listening to your patient, listen to what they say. Refer to the previous rule, pull your head out of your ass and remember, before you recall the entire pathophysiology chapter on whatever organ system you think is involved, just listen to what is being said. chances are, that will be more useful.
Mind personal space. Your own, your patients', and those you work with. Get out of their personal space, and for the love of god, get your head out of the surgical field.
Don't be awkward. This one can actually be tricky to accomplish. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell whether you are or not. best not to rely on your friends, as they can be mistaken, thinking you are not awkward. absolutely, do not ask your mother. she has no idea. if you have any doubt in your mind that you might be, just a little, you probably are. dont be. just dont.
Respect the hierarchy. Medicine is highly hierarchical: there is order to be respected. never assume you know who people are, always introduce yourself first so others can offer their names and position. don't be fooled by age or camaraderie. ortho bros and small female peds all look the same. when in doubt, residents always look messier.
Hopefully, you will find these tips helpful. Do not fret, you will survice your rotations, just like so many before you. and remember, they can already smell the fear, so if you need to cry, you do so in the privacy of your own home, or car.

off with the foreskin

So it's around 11p, about midway through a long 24h shift. L&D (labor and delivery) is crazy. A lone lanky peds resident (girl) wanders onto L&D looking lost. Her eyes lock on me: "Ummmm... are you a resident?" "no.....but can I help you with anything?" "oh, my attending sent me over. There is a baby, someone circumcised him today," ("that would be me") "...and it's bleeding, and I was wondering if someone can come over and look at it because my attending won't let me touch it." "ok. i'll come over and touch it." A patient is about to deliver, another one needs to go to the OR for a Csection, and here I am trudging over to the NICU to look at a bleeding wiener.
I perform circumcisions, much like a Moyle but without songs or cake. I dislike circumcisions, not as a choice, but as a procedure I am forced to do. I dont get why, as an OB/Gyn, I have to do them. I mean, it makes sense in the sense that it is a surgical procedure, and Ob/Gyn's are surgeons and pediatricians are not. But it does not make sense for many other reasons. I operate on wieners I never see again. Pediatricians follow these wieners for many years. They see them for their vaccinations, and annual physicals, and school and sports clearance. They watch these wieners potty train and grow out of diaper rashes; they watch them ascend through the Tanner stages and develop pubic hair. I do not, and after it's done I never see the fruits of my work...unless it bleeds in the middle of the night. Also, I work with women; 50% of my patient population is immediately eliminated, and, in my professional life, I do not work with penis. So why am i entrusted in performing cosmetic surgery on a body part i never work with?! That's a lot of trust!
Now, the procedure--removal of the foreskin--much like the penis itself, is pretty simple and straight forward. But the process to get it done is a hassle. Usually, I do circumcisions in the morning for sons of women who are going home. Mornings are busy: there are many patients to see, many patients to discharge, there are surgeries happening downstairs, and patients in labor. And as soon as you enter the postpartum floor, nurses bombard you with "i have a circ! I have a circ". it interrupts the flow. Then, the whole process of consent. Most women want their sons' dicks to look pretty (circumcised), but they forget that this requires a surgical procedure. So then I'm stuck in a room with some lady who can't make up her mind. "well, i want it, but i'm so worried. well i want it, but he will cry." then, you get all these theoretical questions, especially, when parents disagree. what are the benefits? well, technically it reduces risk of HIV and other viral transmission, but the studies have mostly been done in areas where HIV rates are way higher, so epidemiologically, it does not make much sense in this country. In this country, without a religious cause, it is purely cosmetic. It is simply because we, as society, decided circumcised penises are neater and prettier. but that's neither here nor there, and usually what makes more sense in the explanation sense is whether or not your son is going to feel weird when he looks at his male relatives, cousins, or kids at school. that's a lot for a mom to swallow: trying to compare your fears and concerns over me hurting your baby right now, and any future concerns of your son feeling even more self-conscious or weird than he will already feel about his pubescent little body. that's a lot of theory early in the morning that no one has time for! and then, of course, you get all these questions about the future of the penis, what to do with it, how will it feel. I dont know, i dont work with penis! nor do i have one!! finally, once the decision is made, and the mother parts with her treasure, you have to de-diaper and watch out for unexpected pee fountains released as if a defense mechanism, as if it knows what's coming.
And after it's all done, i usually make a statement, absolving myself of any responsibility of this penis' future relationship successes and failures. amen.

finding the one

Property shopping appears a lot like online dating. stressful, time-consuming, with lots of anticipation and false hope. Working with a real estate agent is kind of like using an online dating app, and while my broker is amazing, the commercials promising the perfect match may or may not be as accurate.
First, there are the daily notifications: new listings popping up on the market, like new matches. So of course, like a Pavlovian dog, you log in, throughout the day, scroll through the profile, look at pictures, contemplate--do you make a move? should you respond in any way, show your interest? you scroll through pictures, wondering if the property or prospective bachelor really looks like that in real life. Is this an old photo and the dude is now fatter and balder? is this picture taken in some unnatural light that makes the rooms appear bigger and the wrinkles less noticeable? you judge: why would anyone paint their bathroom that atrocious purple, why would anyone choose to post a picture of themselves with other chicks!?
second, you must consider other details, like location, amenities. you want your new place to be in a neighborhood not too far from your current one, you also want your prospective relationship to not live in the suburbs, thereby making the morning drive after a sleep-over ever so painful. alternatively, you you would never want to date a neighbor!! you hope your new place comes with parking spot of some sort, you hope your match has a cool job, any kind of a job that keeps him employed.
third, there are open house, like first dates--awkward, quick, sometimes leaving you wanting to dash as quickly as you get there. Yes, the pictures were staged and this property is way smaller than it appeared; yes, the pictures WERE taken from a weird angle and the guy is barely taller than you. the property in the online profile seemed modern and well maintained; the match in his online profile seemed interesting and funny, and the more you hang out at the property and on the date, you realize that he is, in fact, dull and not at all shiny. and then you feel sad about wasting yet another perfectly sunny saturday at lame open houses, or yet another evening on a shitty date. after a while, you've seen so many places and have met or communicated with, well, some number of guys, they all become known by some code-name: duplex #1, huge kitchen, yellow bathroom, the engineer, grey sweater, great conversation.
now, if you actually like a dude, or a property, you start deliberating. did you like it enough to live there? can you imagine actually being with this person? because nothing and no one is perfect, you start wondering if you can compromise. maybe the location is not perfect, but the view is amazing. maybe he is not as attractive, but the conversation is great. are you tired enough of the open houses, of wasted time, of constant search through pictures and profiles that you're just willing to settle into something so you can stop looking already? maybe you'll be just fine living on a street away from civilization, maybe you'll be fine with a bedroom without natural light; maybe you'll have a great time with the balding dude or the one who talks about his mother.... and somehow, all these things you never thought were important, things that you for sure can overlook and have overlooked in the past, suddenly become these great hang-ups. yes, you actually do care about receding hairlines!! you really do care about natural light, or third-floor walk-ups, or inside parking that you'd rather remain homeless. and then you realize when you're paying this much, you probably should not settle. and you remember 'sex and the city" and you continue logging in to see if new matches to your search have popped up in the last 10 minutes.
"some people are settling down, some people are settling, and some refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies."