Luchador = Fighter

I went to NJ and NY this weekend.

The NJ trip was very personal. I was visiting my uncle, who is not doing well medically. He's been struggling with his health for almost 30 years. As long as I can remember he has been in the struggle. Well, going up to visit him made me realize a few things.

First, I have no reason to complain about anything. I have never seen my uncle complain about stuff. He gets frustrated, but he deals with it. When I look at my own situations I know thatI have been truly blessed in life so far, and I really dont have anything to complain about, no matter how tired I am or how bad things may seem.

Secondly, I've realized more than ever before that faith and belief can go a long way. The whole time I was visiting, he equated how far hes come to no one or nothing other than God. He is one of the most faithful men I have ever met.

A third and final thing I took away from my time in NJ is that love, true love, is the most powerful human force. Between seeing my 83 year old grandma up there helping around and my aunt, my uncles wife, who has stuck by him through better or worse and this whole illness for the better part of their marriage, i am truly humbled. True love has no limits, and it sticks there when all of the niceties are gone and there is no time for all the fluff. I want to have love like that.

The other part of my trip was to the Bronx. I got to visit Montefiore medical center for the second time. I got to meet some attendings and residents in the Social internal medicine program, I got to go on some patient encounters and I was able to learn about a pretty awesome legal aid organization called Bronx Defenders. With all the health care reform talk and all of these major decisions in life I have been really thinking about my career and the direction I want to take it. Im open to almost anything, but I know there are some aspects of practice that I want to be at the center of what I want to do.

I want to fight. I want to fight for my patients and be an advocate for change and the reduction of the health disparities that affect my people. I also want to have some form of social/medical research aspect in my career, I think that its great to spend time one on one, but larger scale changes can be made with larger studies. I also want to integrate spanish in my practice. Over the past 4-5 years I've been gradually working on my spanish. At the rate Im going I can see myself really doing well and actually becoming fluent enough to use it in the hospital.

Overall these past few years have been a testament to the fact that nothing really happens randomly. Some things fit so nicely into place that there is no way I could have foreseen or even tried to plot things out. Now Im just trying to keep an eye and ear out for opportunites and seizing the ones that come because big things are happening. And everything that I am doing now is like preparation for the big fight Im about to join, its not an easy thing, this medicine business, but I am getting ready for show time...

good night
Julian