To the Fine Teachers of the Lawrence Public Schools (1990 - 2000)

So I just read the blog of a friend of mine who recently became a high school teacher. Now, I've known forever that teaching is hard (which is why I've chosen the oh-so-easy world of medicine as a career) but reading about her experiences made me look at it in a completely different way. Lets be honest, we all know that I was a pretty well behaved, innocuous kid who generally listened and didn't like getting in trouble, but everyone does have their moments. I feel really guilty about disrespecting my teachers back in the day, with the exception of Ms. Greenwood for 8th grade social studies, who was pretty wretched and once asked me if I wrote my essays by myself. To all my other teachers, though, I sincerely apologize if I was ever an arrogant little snot.

In unrelated matters, the first patient I've had who could actually die went into the PICU 10 days ago. Even though I officially finished up my genetics rotation on Friday, I'm still very much invested in her and know that I'll go check on her when I get back to New Orleans. Anyway, she's from a little town outside of New Orleans, and her mom has been sleeping in the family room at the hospital every night. The rest of the family can't come into visit that much, so its mostly been mom there all day, every day. The family wasn't supposed to make it into New Orleans for Christmas, so I know that her mom is probably spent tonight and is going to spend tomorrow sitting by herself next to her three year old daughter, who is on a ventilator and sedated and is profoundly ill. Sigh.