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The Winter of Our Discontent

I’ve tried to write this post several times. Life is rapidly oscillating between wonderful and overwhelming. I suspect this is true for many medical students. The forces determining our happiness are many, intertwined, often completely new to us. Many times it can be hard to identify them. However, since my last post, my life has been dominated by news relating to my writing or my disability. There’s been a lot of both.

Let’s start with the writing. It’s easier. I’m proud to announce that Stanford Medical School has given me a grant to write shot stories of medical science fiction. I’d like to thank everyone for the amazing feedback on the proposal essays I posted. I also want to apologize for not recognizing many of the fantastic authors who write medical SF. More than one responder thought my assertion that SF has focused on physical rather than life science to be untenable. And, if I were considering the whole of SF, that is certainly true. Rob Sawyer, Maureen McHugh, Michael Blumlein, and Nancy Kress are only a few of the authors suggested to me who have written fantastic medical SF. In particular, I find many Kress’s short stories impressive and inspirational. In no way did I mean to disregard these authors. However, for the scholarship application, I could only consider those SF works that the committee for Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities would know offhand. Fortunately, the strategy seemed to have worked. Stanford is forgiving a huge part of my tuition to write one medically-related short story per semester. One reason, I didn’t post during December was a rush to finish one such story before an anthology deadline. It somehow turned into a novelette (hate it when that happens), but I liked some of the places it went. Fingers crossed.

In other writing news, I’ve sent (yet another) draft of my first novel in to Tor. My editor has said that it looks good with only some minor adjustments needed. I’ve heard sounds of the hardback coming out in 2010, but take that with a grain of salt. The gears are turning slowly, but at least they’re turning.

The news about my disability? Harder to relate. The National Board of Medical Examiners has rejected my application for accommodations for the national board exams. A medical student’s performance on the first part of the exam, Step 1, more or less determines his competitiveness when applying for residency. That’s especially true at a school like Stanford that does not calculate a GPA for its students. Our professors constantly remind us that Step 1 will determine a large chunk of our medical careers. That’s partly why it is so overwhelming that the NBME is denying that I am covered by the Americans with Disability Act. It’s very unexpected; I was diagnosed at age 6, didn’t learn to read fluently until age 13, have a paper trail of cognitive tests long enough to stretch across California, and have received ADA status from the boards governing the SAT, Yale College, the MCAT, and Stanford Medical School. I met today with the medical school’s coordinator for disabilities. She finds the NBME’s decision preposterous. We’re looking into a formal appeal. In her experience very very few dyslexics make it to medical school; the majority of disabled physicians having either a physical disability or ADD. She hopes that we can convince the NBME of my disability with a more convincing appeal. If we can’t…well, I might have to reconsider my career options.

More than anything else, it’s a shock to my understanding of who I am. Regarding education, I’ve been covered by the ADA since I was 6. I’ve never asked for or received special allowances in a job. On the wards or in the clinic, there’s nothing that separates me from my peers in terms of performance. Every evaluation I’ve received has affirmed my belief that I could become a competent physician. This decision has shaken my belief, filled me with doubt. Of course, I don’t have all the answers. We have to put together an appeal. I should take a practice test to see if I can pass the test without accommodations. Until then, there’s nothing to do but continue to chase the starts I’ve been chasing.

Between studying, appealing the NBME decision, and writing, I’m likely to be insanely busy, but I will try to post more news as soon as I have