The Doctor Is In

Lately, everybody has been asking me, "Do you feel like a doctor?" or "How does it feel to be a doctor?" To tell you the truth, it has not fully sunk in yet. Oddly but fittingly, my path in medicine parallels my path in aikido, especially since I have obtained both my doctorate degree and my shodan rank in the same year. Over the years as I have advanced in rank in aikido, I remember Sensei saying how one does not necessarily obtain all the skills of that particular rank upon passing his/her respective kyu/dan test but rather grows into that particular rank. In my first keiko as a shodan, other than having that cool feeling of wrapping a black belt around my waist, I honestly did not feel that much different. I felt I was the same as before I took that shodan test in Chicago. But as the months passed by, I began to understand what it meant to be a shodan in terms of my perspective of the art of aikido and my responsibility to the community and to myself. And to this day, I am still researching on not what it feels like to be just a shodan, but what it feels like to be a yudansha in general. I am not too much concerned on obtaining my next rank at this point. That is the same attitude I have toward my status as a newly minted physician. I believe that when I start my residency training this July and the following months thereafter, I will begin to understand what it feels like to be a physician as I work with the responsibility of my patients' well-being. But as in aikido, in medicine I have to avoid the trap of having a big ego. During my days in medical school, I have seen a number of residents and some attendings forget what it felt like to be a former medical student and lose their perspective on what it meant to be a physician. But don't worry about me, I won't turn to the dark side ;) Thank you all for supporting me. I'll see you on the mat. Gassho.

-Andre ("Muketsu")