The last assignment of the semester comes in the form of a research paper. For me, my personal goal was to:

a) write a substantial draft that could give me the direction that I wanted to go and 

b) have a piece of writing that contains my own ideas with the backdrop of research

The area of research I chose was physician burnout. Completely different from “hard” science topics, I found it fascinating to me. When I first came into college, I was the typical “I want to be a doctor,” kind of guy. After a couple years in it, I’m not quite sure anymore. I do know that I want to live a fulfilling life, and I wonder if I can do that being a doctor. There was a haunting story I read many months or years ago. It was a story about a surgeon who, having difficulties with mental health and being a surgeon, eventually decided to take his life. At the same time, he killed both of his kids. The story stuck with me, and I chose to study physician burnout this time around. I wanted to learn what it was exactly about the profession that could push so many people to the edge.

The draft went smoothly, and I enjoyed the aspect of reading how physicians write about themselves and their own profession. It was interesting to see how even learned professional can easily feed into their own biases. I would imagine that anyone worth their salt could identify their own biases and tendencies that move them away from holistic review of information, but even among physicians there were some questionable lapses in the literature. As a student it’s hard to tell what it’s intentional, which trends are worth looking at, and I often find myself questioning myself. Trusting my judgement is a skill that I still need to develop.

For me, it’s hard to explain. The final assignment didn’t feel entirely like a final assignment. It just felt like another chapter in becoming a better writer and getting practice in it. Throughout the rest of my college year I intend on making an effort to write more and become better at it. Truly, my writing skills have deteriorated over the course of a couple of years, but when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.