Thursday, November 18, 2010

Reality

When I tell people that I'm moving to New Jersey next year, everybody brings up the cast of Jersey Shore. I have less than no interest in meeting these people with their weird tans (maybe they all have hemochromatosis) and an unhealthy obsession with doing laundry. Maybe I should start a prophylactic course of Doxycycline and Ceftriaxone just in case I ever run into these people. I bet you could catch an STD just by breathing near them.

It got me thinking about reality television and how there's a show for every lifestyle known to man. Even Sarah Palin gets one to "promote the wonders of outdoor Alaska" (read: make the dumbest bid for the Presidency ever. If our next President is a reality star, I'm moving to Europe. Hello, socialized medicine. Oh, wait...)

So how come there's not a reality show about medical school?

The camera following the Mad Medical Student (MMS) around would slowly zoom in on MMS sitting on her couch, wearing sweatpants, surrounded by a moat of pathology notes, muttering to herself about the most common types of appendiceal tumors (Carcinoid, btw). And you wait for something to happen. You go get a snack. When you get back, she's still there. Still studying.

Then the camera falls to the ground and the scene is all sideways, the screen cracked. What just happened, you wonder? Maybe the cameraman was attacked by zombies? Oh wait, he just fell asleep from the sheer mind-numbing boringness and dropped the camera.

All reality shows run on a steady diet of drama, and medical school has its fair share. For instance, they'd film the MMS as she exits her test and begins to compare answers with her fellow inmates classmates. The audience will watch, breathless with anticipation over who will win the argument about the answer to question 10. Does the MMS triumph over her adversary? Find out after the commercial break.

Sadly, no. The adversary's right, as always, dammit. She threatens to kick him in the shins just to make herself feel better for not remembering that it's antifreeze, not methanol, that will cause the kidneys to crystallize when consumed.

And then there'll be a nice montage of MMS studying and mainlining caffeine and checking her email for the 576th time that day.

When Friday rolls around, the audience will sit up a little straighter in their chairs. If there's ever a time for something TV worthy to happen, it would be on Friday night, right? Ooh, look, MMS is wearing real jeans, not sweatpants! She's getting into her car; she must be going out....

To Walmart. You'll watch her stand in the butter aisle for 10 minutes agonizing over the 17 different kinds of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. She's crippled by the choices, because she just took a test that morning and can no longer make decisions. You'll accompany her home, where she'll spend the rest of the night cleaning a weeks worth of dishes out of the sink and doing a month's worth of laundry.

That sounds fascinating, doesn't it. I'm going to call it Why Am I Paying $200,000 To Be Tortured: My "Life" As A Medical Student. Maybe TLC will air it right before I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.

T-23 Hours

T-31 hours

Thank goodness finals week is almost done.

Every test I've taken in the last 2 weeks has been about diarrhea. I am not a 12 year old boy, therefore, I do not find this amusing.