I always wear my watch on my non-pin-entering hand; furthermore, I recently got in the habit of simulating non-pin-entering hand mini seizures, just in case this sort of thing ever happened. Take that, stupid hackers!!
I know I am late to this thread and not having spent the time to read all the replies I am sure I'm simply repeating what others have probably posted. Even so! I must have my say!! Anyway, if the friend takes your advice and regrets it, it is YOUR fault. It isn't really, as he would have made the decision and should be responsible for it, but that is simply how human nature works. The friend should follow their heart. Yeah, it's probably a grind. Yeah, working for Blizzard may seem to some to be the worst thing ever. But maybe your friend is up for that kind of abuse and will actually thrive on it. I threw an entire career in IT out for a chance, just a chance mind you, to get in to medical school...and it worked! Now I work 80+ hours and will for many years. But I am very, very happy doing what I am doing. People who took the easy and secure route have no idea what I am talking about. I have no retirement and will barely make enough to retire because I am entering the field much later than my colleagues. And there is plenty of abuse at work. But I survived my intern year and things can only get better. Probably its like that as an intern game programmer. Things will only get better. But if it doesn't work out, chances are that if he got a 70k offer right out of school, he'll probably do even better in a year with 80+ hour weeks under his belt, willing and able to do more that he could've just out of school. So don't discourage your friend. Sure, tell him what it's like, then say, "but you know what, if anybody can do it, you can." It is cheesy, sure, but it is true - good, friendly support and encouragement goes a long, long way.
Current medical school curriculum teaches us that documentation should be objective, complete and should include an impression and plan. Never did any of my professors or attendings teach me that I should document as if no patient will see the record. Perhaps this was the case in the old days, but the old days are over.
"Patient is non-cooperative" is not opinion. It is a statement about whether the patient will allow the physician to carry out a proper history and exam. How I document this kind of encounter is, "patient refuses to be examined."
Patently false. I am a doctor and I have never had a professor or proctor or attending physician teach me to never let the patient see the charts. In fact, on many occasions, when a patient has expressed the appropriate level of interest and is intent on understanding, I have printed reports from their record and given these to the patient, or pulled the x-ray up on my iPad and shown it to them. Then I spend a few minutes explaining the big words. Then I ask if they have any questions. They love it, and so do I.
Also, many physicians actually appreciate electronic records keeping in the hospital. Where you have legitimate complaints is in the clinic, especially for small offices, where incredibly burdensome laws actually make it so that we must spend less time with the patient in order to complete documentation. Incidentally, we don't get paid any more for this extra work, though we are responsible for paying for the software and then losing time in order to complete it. So we are burdened with greater costs and greater demands on our time. While this makes it easier for insurance and government to more finely control and regulate the health care that I have been trained to provide, it doesn't actually produce a better outcome for the patient in the majority of cases.
Lastly, because every doctor I know who has made it out of residency has been sued at least twice, we are very careful, by and large, about what we put in the record. That's why when I know a patient is lying about pain, I don't write "patient is lying about his pain." Instead, I carefully record my objective findings: "Patient's abdomen is exquisitely tender to palpation, but not to palpation by stethoscope."
I happen to be a doctor. I think that patients should be allowed to have their records. Will it do them any good? Doubt it. Just because you can look your condition up on the Internet does not make you qualified to read and understand your medical records. Heck, more than half the time I can't even read what my colleagues write. But, welcome to them, I say. And if you bring your records around to my clinic after my residency, I will cheerfully meet with you and charge a level 4 visit to pore over them and do my best to try and decipher the writing. Then I will actually need to do a complete history and physical the first time I meet you and record all that data over again because that's what a good doctor does. Then I will give you information about what I think will help you - give you the data you need, and the alternatives, so that you can hopefully make an informed decision. So, sure, Have your records. I don't really see why not.
No, video games and movies do not "make" people violent. Rather, explicitly violent material reinforces neural pathways already there as part of being human. However, this also means that violent content inures and de-sensitizes consumers so that the hyper-violent is more acceptable. And, in those relatively few individuals already prone to violence due to mental health issues, it erodes the line between the real and the unreal and makes it more difficult for these folks to connect.
Neurologic studies tell us some interesting things about our brains. Here are some tidbits I've picked up along the way through med school.
1. Our brains remain 'plastic', or malleable for learning, until the day we die. Whether that potential is actually exercised is up to the patient.
2. Learning a 2nd language actually staves off Alzheimer's, speaking of broad averages across retrospective studies. YMMV, as neurologic problems in old age tend to follow genetics as much as environment.
3. Our vocabulary tends to grow.
4. Our ability to memorize decreases, but can still be done - it simply takes longer (more work).
5. Our brains physically shrink in old age. This is yet one more reason why the elderly are more susceptible to brain bleeds - the bridging veins get stretched as the brain matter sort of retracts, making it easier for the veins to be broken and cause a bleed.
6. Brains are a lot like muscles, in that as we age, the brain and the muscles naturally enter into senescence - about mid thirty for muscles, somewhere between 40 and 50 for the brain - but, like muscles given a regular training program, not only can the established neural networks be reinforced and maintained, new ones can be forged (see item #1) - it just takes more work than when we were younger.
If you are having to ask the question, like you need permission, perhaps you are too old. Don't go gabbing to a bunch of people with nothing better to do than scan comments and comment on comments on old articles and re-hashes of re-posts. Go study your new language, instead.
I was 35 when I quit my job as a Java web developer and started medical school. I'm going to finish in May of 2012. If I had asked others if I could do it, I wouldn't've gotten up and gotten it done. They would have told me I was at a comfortable job, making a comfortable living. Why would I do any such thing that might impact my family?
My family managed. I'm still happily married. We haven't starved yet or had to live on the street. It's working out.
Go. Learn your new language. Do not ask other people if you can or cannot do something new. The only person in the galaxy that can actually answer that question is you.
You are welcome.
I love my tablet PC and MS OneNote. And I know there are other programs out there that will do the same in other OS's. I am in my 2nd year of med school and each of our lectures typically comes with a PowerPoint or PDF. I download it, print it to OneNote and then take notes directly on the instructor's presentation. I can draw, type and highlight. It is by far the best combination of writing/drawing/notetaking that I have ever used. Furthermore, it allows me to organize by course, exam and lecture. It is really rather keen.
Clotting depends on a lot of factors. Some of which include the various cytokines that are released whenever there is tissue damage. These released cytokines can jump start the clotting process, whether in the vessel or on your skin surface. Another factor, as you mentioned, is stasis. This is the source of clots and chronic wounds, we call these 'venous stasis ulcers,' they are very hard to get to heal. You can see this in advanced stages of type two diabetes (what we used to call 'adult onset' diabetes). No, I am not a doctor, but as a 2nd year med student I often get graded on pretending to be a doctor in the sim lab...
The property of the elasticity of the vessels has much more to do with the constituents of its wall and less to do with the pulse. In fact, all of the arterial vessels (and even a few of the venous ones) have muscle fibers in them and are affected by various endogenous and exogenous forces. Parasympathetic innervation tends to constrict the vessels in certain places and dilate in others (the gut), sympathetic innervation tightens it up in many places (the gut) and dilates them in others (skeletal muscles). I am not a doctor, but as a 2nd year med student, I often pretend to be one.
I started out as a phone rep on the floor of a credit collection department. Because I liked to build computers and was interested in programming, I began building a relationship with the LAN team/help desk. I got a certification, then applied for an open position. I enjoyed it but it left me wanting more than unjamming stuff and rebooting computers for clueless users. Even though I didn't mind the work (I don't stress out very easily) I knew I could go further. I began taking programming classes and began proactively taking on scripting tasks and small programming assignments to make my job and the jobs of those around me a lot easier. I jumped at every chance to learn something new, even if it wasn't fun or interesting. I was always eager to learn. When the opportunity opened up to become an intern programmer, I applied and was accepted. Meanwhile, I got an associates in software engineering and began taking classes to complete a B.S. in comp sci. At this point, I realized I would never move up as fast as I wanted to with that company so I bailed and took a similar (lateral move) position with G.E. as a web developer. I began taking classes in web development, earned 2 of the 4 Java certs that were available at the time and finished my degree. Then they laid me off! Eight days before Christmas when we were expecting our 3rd child only a month later! Turns out, it was the best thing to happen. Forty-five days later I was offered a job in another state with a generous move bonus and a slight raise. Thirteen months later I moved yet again to another company. It was then that I realized I didn't really like computers so I took some pre-med classes, volunteered at a local emergency room (on Friday nights until midnight and sometimes later, the stories I could tell!!) and took the MCAT (3 times). Now I am between my 1st and 2nd year in med school and I love it. I would never have thought I would be a physician, especially not at nearly 40 years old with 4 kids and a big mortgage, but everything is working out. Here are the points of my rather long story: 1) work hard and learn continually 2) always look for a better situation and be prepared to get out of your comfort zone to obtain it 3) be receptive to new experiences in different areas that might later bear fruit 4) work hard and learn continually.
I know! When you are as old as I am, you really want to find new stuff to fight the boredom. These days, hardly anything works, plus I seem to be making more typos than I used to. The price of getting really old, I guess...
I was 37 when I entered medical school. Before that, I was Java programmer. I found that I had to work much harder in order to keep up in med school than I ever did in cubicle land. But I love it! I love lecture, the books, the patient encounters, cadaver lab, everything. It is amazing to me that I get to do this. I also found that the simple skill of memorizing and learning is like any other skill - the more I practice it, the better I get. I have also found that I enjoy thinking through things a lot more, and I have found that I am thinking more deeply than I used to. Probably because I am much more passionate about medicine and healing than I ever was about computers or programming. Perhaps if you are having difficulty remembering things you feel you should remember, you should one of three things. 1) Use technology make up the lack - lots of posters are suggesting this, it's easy. 2) Get a referral from your primary care physician to go see a neurologist. He or she will have some standardized tests they can use to determine if you are within norm or not. Regardless of where you fit in terms of your memory, a neurologist may have some practical suggestions on how to approach this challenge. 3) Find a career about which you are passionate enough so that you are fired up mentally. It could be that you simply don't care enough to make the effort required to remember things you think you should remember. Maybe you need a vacation or maybe you should find a hobby that is fulfilling and fun that has nothing to do with your career. It could be that you are simply burnt out. Here is a list of questions that are a modified Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), by Paul O'Leary, MD, from the Fall 2008 issue of "Physician License & Practice Today,", page 8:
1. I feel emotionally drained from my work
2. I feel used up at the end of the workday
3. I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day on the job
4. I don't understand how my patients (customers/coworkers/boss/minions) feel about things
5. I feel I treat some (same list as 4) as if they were impersonal 'objects'
6. Working with people all day is really as strain for me
7. I deal very poorly with the problems of (same list of people as 4)
8. I feel burned out from my work
9. I feel I'm not influencing people's lives through my work
10. I've become more callous toward people since I took this job.
Anyway, don't accept the status quo. Work through this problem. Use your analytical skills and experience and find a solution and then apply it with discipline. The brain can do wonderful things but, really, only if we make it so. Good luck! -
Today's batch of Word Processors (not your simple notepad and editor software) is a pretty good bunch, by and large, and most, if not all, will take the HTML page and nearly faithfully reproduce it's content. Then store it in a topic named hierarchy of folders. Now it is organized, searchable and backup-able. Furthermore, all of the modern word processors I am aware of allow you to annotate the content and track your changes. Voila!! Simple solutions are really best.
After volunteering in an emergency room for over a year (on Friday nights, 8 PM to Midnight - exciting times - especially when the moon is full) I realized that my current career (IT > Programming > Java Server side & business rules XML) just isn't enough. I finished my pre-meds, took the MCAT (3 times! It was Monstrous!) and have been accepted to attend a pretty well known osteopathic school of medicine this coming fall (166 days - but who's counting?). Which is nice for me - you can bet I am pretty darn excited.
Here is my point - go find a volunteer experience in an area that intrigues you and you may find yourself blown away by how cool something is that you never before contemplated. I absolutely look forward to my volunteer time in the ER every week and I would have never found out about all of this and got on this course if I hadn't first set out to give something back to the community. There are 1000s of opportunities to get involved. Just do it!
I have just spent the last 2 years fulfilling the pre-reqs for medical school. I will take the MCAT a week from tomorrow and will enter medical school in the fall of 2007. I will graduate in 2011 and enter a residency - hopefully surgery, which lasts 5 more years. I will finish my residency about the same time my oldest child finishes his first year of college. I will be 44. If you don't follow your dreams, in ten years you will simply be 10 years older. If you do what will make you happy, in 10 years you will be 10 years older, but you will also have been a lot happier for those 10 years. Like someone already said in this thread, the only too-old there is, is dead.
Slashdot Mirror
I always wear my watch on my non-pin-entering hand; furthermore, I recently got in the habit of simulating non-pin-entering hand mini seizures, just in case this sort of thing ever happened. Take that, stupid hackers!!
call the wahmbulance. next!
I know I am late to this thread and not having spent the time to read all the replies I am sure I'm simply repeating what others have probably posted. Even so! I must have my say!! Anyway, if the friend takes your advice and regrets it, it is YOUR fault. It isn't really, as he would have made the decision and should be responsible for it, but that is simply how human nature works. The friend should follow their heart. Yeah, it's probably a grind. Yeah, working for Blizzard may seem to some to be the worst thing ever. But maybe your friend is up for that kind of abuse and will actually thrive on it. I threw an entire career in IT out for a chance, just a chance mind you, to get in to medical school...and it worked! Now I work 80+ hours and will for many years. But I am very, very happy doing what I am doing. People who took the easy and secure route have no idea what I am talking about. I have no retirement and will barely make enough to retire because I am entering the field much later than my colleagues. And there is plenty of abuse at work. But I survived my intern year and things can only get better. Probably its like that as an intern game programmer. Things will only get better. But if it doesn't work out, chances are that if he got a 70k offer right out of school, he'll probably do even better in a year with 80+ hour weeks under his belt, willing and able to do more that he could've just out of school. So don't discourage your friend. Sure, tell him what it's like, then say, "but you know what, if anybody can do it, you can." It is cheesy, sure, but it is true - good, friendly support and encouragement goes a long, long way.
Current medical school curriculum teaches us that documentation should be objective, complete and should include an impression and plan. Never did any of my professors or attendings teach me that I should document as if no patient will see the record. Perhaps this was the case in the old days, but the old days are over.
"Patient is non-cooperative" is not opinion. It is a statement about whether the patient will allow the physician to carry out a proper history and exam. How I document this kind of encounter is, "patient refuses to be examined."
Patently false. I am a doctor and I have never had a professor or proctor or attending physician teach me to never let the patient see the charts. In fact, on many occasions, when a patient has expressed the appropriate level of interest and is intent on understanding, I have printed reports from their record and given these to the patient, or pulled the x-ray up on my iPad and shown it to them. Then I spend a few minutes explaining the big words. Then I ask if they have any questions. They love it, and so do I. Also, many physicians actually appreciate electronic records keeping in the hospital. Where you have legitimate complaints is in the clinic, especially for small offices, where incredibly burdensome laws actually make it so that we must spend less time with the patient in order to complete documentation. Incidentally, we don't get paid any more for this extra work, though we are responsible for paying for the software and then losing time in order to complete it. So we are burdened with greater costs and greater demands on our time. While this makes it easier for insurance and government to more finely control and regulate the health care that I have been trained to provide, it doesn't actually produce a better outcome for the patient in the majority of cases. Lastly, because every doctor I know who has made it out of residency has been sued at least twice, we are very careful, by and large, about what we put in the record. That's why when I know a patient is lying about pain, I don't write "patient is lying about his pain." Instead, I carefully record my objective findings: "Patient's abdomen is exquisitely tender to palpation, but not to palpation by stethoscope."
I happen to be a doctor. I think that patients should be allowed to have their records. Will it do them any good? Doubt it. Just because you can look your condition up on the Internet does not make you qualified to read and understand your medical records. Heck, more than half the time I can't even read what my colleagues write. But, welcome to them, I say. And if you bring your records around to my clinic after my residency, I will cheerfully meet with you and charge a level 4 visit to pore over them and do my best to try and decipher the writing. Then I will actually need to do a complete history and physical the first time I meet you and record all that data over again because that's what a good doctor does. Then I will give you information about what I think will help you - give you the data you need, and the alternatives, so that you can hopefully make an informed decision. So, sure, Have your records. I don't really see why not.
No, video games and movies do not "make" people violent. Rather, explicitly violent material reinforces neural pathways already there as part of being human. However, this also means that violent content inures and de-sensitizes consumers so that the hyper-violent is more acceptable. And, in those relatively few individuals already prone to violence due to mental health issues, it erodes the line between the real and the unreal and makes it more difficult for these folks to connect.
Neurologic studies tell us some interesting things about our brains. Here are some tidbits I've picked up along the way through med school.
1. Our brains remain 'plastic', or malleable for learning, until the day we die. Whether that potential is actually exercised is up to the patient.
2. Learning a 2nd language actually staves off Alzheimer's, speaking of broad averages across retrospective studies. YMMV, as neurologic problems in old age tend to follow genetics as much as environment.
3. Our vocabulary tends to grow.
4. Our ability to memorize decreases, but can still be done - it simply takes longer (more work).
5. Our brains physically shrink in old age. This is yet one more reason why the elderly are more susceptible to brain bleeds - the bridging veins get stretched as the brain matter sort of retracts, making it easier for the veins to be broken and cause a bleed.
6. Brains are a lot like muscles, in that as we age, the brain and the muscles naturally enter into senescence - about mid thirty for muscles, somewhere between 40 and 50 for the brain - but, like muscles given a regular training program, not only can the established neural networks be reinforced and maintained, new ones can be forged (see item #1) - it just takes more work than when we were younger.
If you are having to ask the question, like you need permission, perhaps you are too old. Don't go gabbing to a bunch of people with nothing better to do than scan comments and comment on comments on old articles and re-hashes of re-posts. Go study your new language, instead. I was 35 when I quit my job as a Java web developer and started medical school. I'm going to finish in May of 2012. If I had asked others if I could do it, I wouldn't've gotten up and gotten it done. They would have told me I was at a comfortable job, making a comfortable living. Why would I do any such thing that might impact my family? My family managed. I'm still happily married. We haven't starved yet or had to live on the street. It's working out. Go. Learn your new language. Do not ask other people if you can or cannot do something new. The only person in the galaxy that can actually answer that question is you. You are welcome.
I love my tablet PC and MS OneNote. And I know there are other programs out there that will do the same in other OS's. I am in my 2nd year of med school and each of our lectures typically comes with a PowerPoint or PDF. I download it, print it to OneNote and then take notes directly on the instructor's presentation. I can draw, type and highlight. It is by far the best combination of writing/drawing/notetaking that I have ever used. Furthermore, it allows me to organize by course, exam and lecture. It is really rather keen.
The house across the street...
Clotting depends on a lot of factors. Some of which include the various cytokines that are released whenever there is tissue damage. These released cytokines can jump start the clotting process, whether in the vessel or on your skin surface. Another factor, as you mentioned, is stasis. This is the source of clots and chronic wounds, we call these 'venous stasis ulcers,' they are very hard to get to heal. You can see this in advanced stages of type two diabetes (what we used to call 'adult onset' diabetes). No, I am not a doctor, but as a 2nd year med student I often get graded on pretending to be a doctor in the sim lab...
The property of the elasticity of the vessels has much more to do with the constituents of its wall and less to do with the pulse. In fact, all of the arterial vessels (and even a few of the venous ones) have muscle fibers in them and are affected by various endogenous and exogenous forces. Parasympathetic innervation tends to constrict the vessels in certain places and dilate in others (the gut), sympathetic innervation tightens it up in many places (the gut) and dilates them in others (skeletal muscles). I am not a doctor, but as a 2nd year med student, I often pretend to be one.
Also won't work if the patient has Raynaud's.
I started out as a phone rep on the floor of a credit collection department. Because I liked to build computers and was interested in programming, I began building a relationship with the LAN team/help desk. I got a certification, then applied for an open position. I enjoyed it but it left me wanting more than unjamming stuff and rebooting computers for clueless users. Even though I didn't mind the work (I don't stress out very easily) I knew I could go further. I began taking programming classes and began proactively taking on scripting tasks and small programming assignments to make my job and the jobs of those around me a lot easier. I jumped at every chance to learn something new, even if it wasn't fun or interesting. I was always eager to learn. When the opportunity opened up to become an intern programmer, I applied and was accepted. Meanwhile, I got an associates in software engineering and began taking classes to complete a B.S. in comp sci. At this point, I realized I would never move up as fast as I wanted to with that company so I bailed and took a similar (lateral move) position with G.E. as a web developer. I began taking classes in web development, earned 2 of the 4 Java certs that were available at the time and finished my degree. Then they laid me off! Eight days before Christmas when we were expecting our 3rd child only a month later! Turns out, it was the best thing to happen. Forty-five days later I was offered a job in another state with a generous move bonus and a slight raise. Thirteen months later I moved yet again to another company. It was then that I realized I didn't really like computers so I took some pre-med classes, volunteered at a local emergency room (on Friday nights until midnight and sometimes later, the stories I could tell!!) and took the MCAT (3 times). Now I am between my 1st and 2nd year in med school and I love it. I would never have thought I would be a physician, especially not at nearly 40 years old with 4 kids and a big mortgage, but everything is working out. Here are the points of my rather long story:
1) work hard and learn continually
2) always look for a better situation and be prepared to get out of your comfort zone to obtain it
3) be receptive to new experiences in different areas that might later bear fruit
4) work hard and learn continually.
I know! When you are as old as I am, you really want to find new stuff to fight the boredom. These days, hardly anything works, plus I seem to be making more typos than I used to. The price of getting really old, I guess...
That's it! I quit! I will never play D & D again! Oh wait, I haven't played since I was 1986. yawns and moves on
...and nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
I was 37 when I entered medical school. Before that, I was Java programmer. I found that I had to work much harder in order to keep up in med school than I ever did in cubicle land. But I love it! I love lecture, the books, the patient encounters, cadaver lab, everything. It is amazing to me that I get to do this. I also found that the simple skill of memorizing and learning is like any other skill - the more I practice it, the better I get. I have also found that I enjoy thinking through things a lot more, and I have found that I am thinking more deeply than I used to. Probably because I am much more passionate about medicine and healing than I ever was about computers or programming. Perhaps if you are having difficulty remembering things you feel you should remember, you should one of three things. 1) Use technology make up the lack - lots of posters are suggesting this, it's easy. 2) Get a referral from your primary care physician to go see a neurologist. He or she will have some standardized tests they can use to determine if you are within norm or not. Regardless of where you fit in terms of your memory, a neurologist may have some practical suggestions on how to approach this challenge. 3) Find a career about which you are passionate enough so that you are fired up mentally. It could be that you simply don't care enough to make the effort required to remember things you think you should remember. Maybe you need a vacation or maybe you should find a hobby that is fulfilling and fun that has nothing to do with your career. It could be that you are simply burnt out. Here is a list of questions that are a modified Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), by Paul O'Leary, MD, from the Fall 2008 issue of "Physician License & Practice Today,", page 8:
1. I feel emotionally drained from my work
2. I feel used up at the end of the workday
3. I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day on the job
4. I don't understand how my patients (customers/coworkers/boss/minions) feel about things
5. I feel I treat some (same list as 4) as if they were impersonal 'objects'
6. Working with people all day is really as strain for me
7. I deal very poorly with the problems of (same list of people as 4)
8. I feel burned out from my work
9. I feel I'm not influencing people's lives through my work
10. I've become more callous toward people since I took this job.
Anyway, don't accept the status quo. Work through this problem. Use your analytical skills and experience and find a solution and then apply it with discipline. The brain can do wonderful things but, really, only if we make it so. Good luck! -
Today's batch of Word Processors (not your simple notepad and editor software) is a pretty good bunch, by and large, and most, if not all, will take the HTML page and nearly faithfully reproduce it's content. Then store it in a topic named hierarchy of folders. Now it is organized, searchable and backup-able. Furthermore, all of the modern word processors I am aware of allow you to annotate the content and track your changes. Voila!! Simple solutions are really best.
For a moment I thought it said Lurid Meteor Shower and was afraid the article wasn't safe to click on at work...
After volunteering in an emergency room for over a year (on Friday nights, 8 PM to Midnight - exciting times - especially when the moon is full) I realized that my current career (IT > Programming > Java Server side & business rules XML) just isn't enough. I finished my pre-meds, took the MCAT (3 times! It was Monstrous!) and have been accepted to attend a pretty well known osteopathic school of medicine this coming fall (166 days - but who's counting?). Which is nice for me - you can bet I am pretty darn excited.
Here is my point - go find a volunteer experience in an area that intrigues you and you may find yourself blown away by how cool something is that you never before contemplated. I absolutely look forward to my volunteer time in the ER every week and I would have never found out about all of this and got on this course if I hadn't first set out to give something back to the community. There are 1000s of opportunities to get involved. Just do it!
...if you feel the need to ask then you shouldn't work at either. Good Luck, dude.
I have just spent the last 2 years fulfilling the pre-reqs for medical school. I will take the MCAT a week from tomorrow and will enter medical school in the fall of 2007. I will graduate in 2011 and enter a residency - hopefully surgery, which lasts 5 more years. I will finish my residency about the same time my oldest child finishes his first year of college. I will be 44. If you don't follow your dreams, in ten years you will simply be 10 years older. If you do what will make you happy, in 10 years you will be 10 years older, but you will also have been a lot happier for those 10 years. Like someone already said in this thread, the only too-old there is, is dead.