Humbled

I am so humbled by the contributions that have come in during the first days of blog! Within less than 3 days, you have bridged 33% of the financial shortfall for my family to make it to my first paycheck as a physician! The hardship of the last several years has been real and substancial but I know that there is an end in sight. I will soon have financial solvency and that is such a privilege. Very few people are actually able to work themselves out of poverty.

Over the last several years, my family has been on the receiving end of many wonderful gifts and I have been creating a Pay It Forward list in my head. Mostly the benefits have been for my children, which makes me very happy to have been able to provide them with some special and important childhood experiences - summer camp scholarships, practically free martial arts, free lunch at school, reduced cost music lessons, opportunities to travel internationally with their grandmothers. I’ve learned to say “Yes” when people offer to pick up the check and to ask for help when I need it. The spirit of generosity that continues to be displayed by the people helping us out adds to the warmth of my spirit and my optimism for humanity (especially in the coming years).

I’ve added some features to the blog – a link to the donation form on the top sidebar and below that a progress bar for tracking the gifts. I hope at some point this will become a regular “last weeks of med school” blog. Would you like to hear (HIPAA-safe) stories about medical school? What sort of questions do you have about it? I’m happy to see from the stats that people are reading the blog, but I would love to have comments too!

(I also learned my first blogging lesson - save early and often! I had a much better written version of this post on my computer this AM but it was eaten by the rainbow beach ball of doom)