a heritage to be thankful for

I matched at Franklin Square Family Medicine Residency! I am very excited to be a part of their program and looking forward to a lot of hard work & learning over the next few years. My family medicine residency will be 3 years and I'm hoping to do an additional year of obstetrics (the "OB fellowship") while there. It's been a long road to get here with a whole lot of school and a whole lot of money.

I'm thankful. I say that a lot, but I wanted to write this post to trace that a little bit and hopefully nurture my appreciation for how thankful I am for so many people. After all, on a day like Match Day, most people end up celebrating my work and what I've done to get here. My contribution was significant, but it is far outweighed by what others have done.

I don't want to be trite, but I am thankful that I was born in a place, culture, and family where I had the opportunity to become a doctor in the first place. All the intelligence and hard work in the world wouldn't have gotten me to medical school if I had happened to be born at the same time in Somalia. And even that has been shaped by my ancestors, from the crazy bloodletting grave robbers who founded University of Maryland and the soldiers who fought to protect America, to the slaves who helped build our country's economic strength and the victims of various diseases that provided the medical research I later memorized. Even the people whose bodies I dissected to learn anatomy passed a gift on to me. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships that I got from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation used to belong to one hard-working individual who got it all from other hard-working individuals. The good and bad have become my heritage, and I can only be grateful even as I still try not to repeat history's mistakes.

I have had many teachers along the way-- my parents, my friends, my martial arts instructors, my professors, my attendings, my residents, and quite often my patients. There were some that just did their job, there were others who didn't even make it that far, and there were many who gave above & beyond what I expected or asked of them. Most did more than they were paid for. There were plenty of things that I looked up in books for myself, but even how to do that well I learned from others. Along the way I picked up bits & pieces of different ideologies, made some terrible arguments, and perhaps even time from others who needed it more than me. he good and bad have become my heritage, and I can only be grateful even as I as I look to give good things to others.

Many of you know a little something about my family and the fact that I was born into the sort of family that most of us wouldn't bet on for success and born to the sort of people that few of us would characterize as "the parents of a future doctor." Yet, somehow, they changed. They grew up. They took responsibility. They chose, despite the opportunities otherwise, to sacrifice their desires to raise me and my siblings. Especially after they came to know & love Jesus, He began to change them. Faced with a school system that they felt was not best for me, they even gave up more income and more time for themselves to homeschool me, which I think played a huge part in shaping me academically and personally. There was good and bad in this, too-- while I avoided some of the drudgery of the public school system and learned a lot of things more quickly, I became one of those "homeschooling-is-awesome" conservative Christian assholes that now make me twitch uncontrollably. I learned passion, dedication, and perseverance by watching my parents love us, but I also learned overbearing attachment and codependency. The good and bad have become my heritage, and I can only be grateful even as I try to hold on to the good and reject the bad for my own children.

Lastly, even my life is a gift, as are many of the things about me that have helped me to get to where I am. Regardless of my relationship with Jesus, I think I'd be pretty driven, thoughtful, and compassionate. I might have even become a successful doctor. Yet, when I pay attention, I see that my heart is simply brimming over with selfishness, anger, and pride. I end up lifting myself up at the expense of others a lot already, and I know I'd do it a lot more if I didn't have the Holy Spirit. If Jesus hadn't given up His life for me, I wouldn't have any motivation to give mine up for others. With this faith comes many challenges and opportunities to fail, which I seem to jump at. It also brings many hard questions. Yet, at the end of the day, the most important thing that it brings is a radical perspective on myself and my work. As exciting as it is to have a picture of me smooching my wife in the Baltimore Sun, that'll pass away. So will my medical knowledge and the work that I do. I am, ultimately, a pretty insignificant human being. Yet God's grace says that I was loved infinitely and bought with the blood of Christ. That not only overcomes the heart that frequently bubbles over with selfishness against others, but it gives me an unshakable identity as His child over & beyond anything else. I am thankful for all that I have and all that's been given to me, but one day what I give and what I've been given will pass from my eyes in death. And then what I will behold with my eyes will be even more glorious.

As Eugene Peterson says, "We wake and are called out to participate in God's creative action. We respond in faith, in work. But always grace is previous. Grace is primary. We wake into a world we didn't make, into a salvation we didn't earn."

So for that I am thankful. Thank you-- if you're reading this, you probably did something to help me get to where I am today. Now I gotta go write some thank-you notes for everyone who doesn't read my blog.