No nerves struck…I’m 32. I just find it amusing that you feel the need to party at the prom to feel younger. I find alot of pettiness with doctors I encounter and I couldn’t understand alot of it. Now, after this thread, I realize that high school just doesn’t ever end.
I would venture to say 99% of those who come here haven’t done the things on my list. I’m as non-trad as you get…also with a bit of a contrarian (sp) thrown in for good measure. I guess I’m at the age where my time is better spent in other things. While going to the prom at 40 might be fun I just don’t see it. In case I was wrong I asked my wife her thoughts…she just laughed and thought it was silly. Silly to have a prom, silly to go, silly to argue about going or not…just plain silly. So I’ll stop the silliness. 
This has been a great thread. It would have been quite a shock to have heard about this while at school. At least now I have time to subdue the laughter when it comes up.
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No nerves struck…I’m 32. I just find it amusing that you feel the need to party at the prom to feel younger. I find alot of pettiness with doctors I encounter and I couldn’t understand alot of it. Now, after this thread, I realize that high school just doesn’t ever end.
You know I’m wondering do you think the presidental inaguartion ball is just a prom for politicians? Is every event that requires a tux and fancy dress a prom? Did you have a prom after you got married? Wow!
Lemme tell you, age is an attidude not a number. Chronological age in so many cases doesn’t match “spiritual” age although it’s quite unusual to see someone adopt an age that would make them decades older than they really are.
And as for silly, I think it’s silly to insult people who have ideas, thoughts, and interests different from our own. If an 80 year-old woman wants to wear booty shorts while doing the macarena, why can’t we just say “well, I wouldn’t do that but she’s doing herthing”??? I believe the key word here is tolerance in the absence of judgement.
You know I post on about 5 different premed/med websites and it’s just absolutely amazing how judgemental and malevolent people can be when someone dares to step outside whatever “box” society has put them in. And I was under the illusion (until a I started posting on a regular basis) that med school types really want to help people. How can you help/work with a person when you’re so full of contempt and judgement of “silly” differences?
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However, with such limited resources, I think those issues should be prioritized - and organizing a charity run or a canned-food drive (ignoring other perfectly well-organized local efforts) is not good use of resources. The same goes for any social event that is not inclusive. We’ve got parents in our class who are spending about 6 hours a day at home and hardly see their young kids; social events that don’t include the kids just make life more difficult for them. And, if we’re going to have a fitness center, we should have child-care facilities too.
A couple of serious things that come out of this goofy thread, that meowmix brings out here.
And both of them are about how medical students as a group are thinking about people who are different from them.
Are they ignoring them (as in the case of not thinking about child care issues even as their fellow classmates talk about the lack of childcare and passing pics of kids around and so on)?
Are they treating them as distant “others” to be pitied, an opportunity for social advancement (as in noblesse-oblige “charity” efforts that have no relationship to the local community and do not necessarily reflect the local community’s most pressing needs)?
I’m all for dancing, and even if I think dancing is better done with a much more casual approach to style than a formal would suggest, I think it’s fine that people have dances and enjoy them. But I think the underlying emotional issue behind some of the posts in this thread is an important one–the sense that sometimes in medical school, students are so involved in each other and themselves that they forget the idea of being embedded in a larger community of people who are not all alike.
But–given the sorts of things that medical school faculty often end up doing, including all sorts of black-tie benefit dinners for one medical cause or another, all of which have big cost overheads and fail to reach out to a larger community–it is not surprising that medical students do much the same thing. And given that many doctors only respond to poverty and need and the needs of the local communities around them by periodic acts of charity, rather than more sustained efforts of solidarity, I think that the ubiquitous phenomenon of the medical school canned-food-drive-in-isolation, new “mentoring project” that competes with and/or ignores existing projects, “community outreach” in which the community is not involved, and so on, is a reflection of the values of much of the profession. In other words, “prom”–especially when it is a “charity ball” as in some cases–is really about something bigger than dancing and how you want to dress when you go dancing, and in my mind, something more sad and frustrating.
Which is, this is not about dancing: it’s about aspiration. “Prom” in the high school version is a dress-up version of being adults. For that reason, it is silly but innocent enough. Medical students are adults. (Believe it or not.) And so, “prom” is a dress-up version of being doctors–of attending fancy benefit dinners and schmoozing with other well-off professionals, as many doctors do. (Note, for instance, how often the NYT society pages feature medical “benefit dinners” featuring a mix of doctors and well-off society people. These are the real and quite costly things that “prom” is actually seeking to emulate.) It’s about joining society, or rather, Society. I suspect from my casual observation that the people who are most enthusiastic about whatever form of “prom” is going on are the people who have the highest hopes for medicine as a doorway into social position. I don’t condemn this, because many of the folks who like med school “prom” the most are not from families of people who went to the adult versions of such events, but from families who wished they could but couldn’t afford to. Fair enough. Still, it’s not what I want medicine to be about for me, and call me moralistic, but I find it disappointing.
cheers
joe
Changing subject somewhat but kind of relevant…it is amazing how many students look “down” on those that may have different learning styles or “other” issues with their lives that do not allow them to follow the crowd like a herd of cattle. It am amazed at some (not many but some) “holier than thou attitude” from some classmates. Not all of us like doing the same stuff, not all of learn by attending lectures ad nauseum, not all of us dress the same, and the list goes on. I guess I better get used to being judged by fellow colleagues but you know what? I really do not care much about what some folks think about me. As long as my patients are comfortable with who I am and how I treat them I could give a flying F**** about what narrow minded people think.
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Changing subject somewhat but kind of relevant…it is amazing how many students look “down” on those that may have different learning styles or “other” issues with their lives that do not allow them to follow the crowd like a herd of cattle.
This is seriously getting off subject here, but let’s talk about the “dance” shall we?
At the core, I am who I am often going against the grain, dancing to my own beat WITHOUT insulting those who have far less rhythm and flare than I do
. What is it about human nature than causes us to condem those who are different? Who knows, but this thread reminds me of one of my advisors in grad school in the Chemistry dept at UNC-Chapel Hill. Prof.E was a woman who also danced to her own beat. She was about 5’9" tall, dressed like a biker, had about 20 earings in her ears each. Now you can only imagine how the CHEMISTRY department viewed her but she was a fav among students. It took her a while to get tenure after being unsuccessful at another university(gee, I wonder why??)Well, for survival purposes I keep some of who I really am to myself although to be honest, the folks at NIH and Hopkins don’t really seem to care to much about stuff like my interest in the Mrs.America Pageant, the fact that I often arrive with my earphones on, or the car I drive. But maybe that’s what being around the “best of the best” is all about, tolerance and acceptance with a focus primarily on what you’ve truly done to make the lives of patients better no matter if you were wearing manolo’s and low rise jeans while doing it or not.
I hear ya girrl! also many times the non-trads are actually the “less tolerant” of the bunch hence why I often get along really well with younger less judgemental folks.
It is interesting how many of us older premeds think alike. Even after a few careers, raising families and some intense life experiences, we tend to prefer many of the ideals of medicine. I laugh at myself sometimes because I’ve done so much yet I’m still idealistic. It takes some effort to stay this way at 41 years old! I doubt I’ll care about running with the in crowd in med school either.
Thanks all for warning me of this medical school prom thing. Hopefully the advance knowledge will keep me from making the comments in my head. I was also recently surprised to learn the majority of doctors are likely to vote for Bush (ok, I know it’s not PC to bring it up but I can’t help myself). I feel a bit naive. Are we older premeds/predocs really that different a group?
Exactly where did your slippery slope come to this conclusion. I’m now judging an 80 year old? I’m entitled to look at something and think “that’s silly”. If asked I can even go as far as to say that “I wouldn’t…but you go right ahead” I still find it funny that you jump on the judgemental bandwagon yet you yourself are passing judgement.
Go. Have your fun. Dance the night away and enjoy yourself. If we’re in the same school perhaps you can tell me how it went. I, ME, do not think that the energies spent on these projects is worth it. Would I go to a dance/formal/prom? Perhaps. Will I be on the planning committee? Definitely not. It’s my choice, so what exactly is the problem. I’ve chosen this for myself. I think that those who spend their time on these committees could better spend their times on other more fruitful endeavours. However, that is why we are all different. If the world had too many me’s and not enough you’s this would be a boring place. I have nothing against the people who plan these things because they are better prepared than I. I have nothing against anyone who goes. I choose not to. Never found the need.
My wedding was at the justice of the peace and no reception nor prom. People can and should do what they like. What they shouldn’t do is sit there, do something, then sit back waiting for a reaction. When they don’t get the reaction they want they go on the attack? I’m sorry I offended you but I stand by my statement. I will not spend my time on these prom/formal committees. That’s my choice.
It’s funny cuz we’re probably the closest as far as distance in the real world yet seem world’s apart on the forum. I’m in Bethesda as well… 
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But–given the sorts of things that medical school faculty often end up doing, including all sorts of black-tie benefit dinners for one medical cause or another, all of which have big cost overheads and fail to reach out to a larger community–it is not surprising that medical students do much the same thing. And given that many doctors only respond to poverty and need and the needs of the local communities around them by periodic acts of charity, rather than more sustained efforts of solidarity, I think that the ubiquitous phenomenon of the medical school canned-food-drive-in-isolation, new “mentoring project” that competes with and/or ignores existing projects, “community outreach” in which the community is not involved, and so on, is a reflection of the values of much of the profession. In other words, “prom”–especially when it is a “charity ball” as in some cases–is really about something bigger than dancing and how you want to dress when you go dancing, and in my mind, something more sad and frustrating.
Which is, this is not about dancing: it’s about aspiration.
I was hoping to extricate myself from this thread, because, basically, it seems so over the top to be talking about prom, and then I gotta ask myself, why are these the threads I find most interesting and tend to post in??
But oh well, I can’t help it. This idea of aspiration among future doctors really bothers me, on two levels. First, there are so many ongoing health care problems in the US and worldwide that could be solved if people gave up a little ego and sat down to discuss and attack the problems. Just last week I drove by a long line of little old ladies shivering over their walkers in the cold, Minneapolis October wind and rain, hoping against the odds to be one of the few people this year that gets a flu shot. Apparently the “clinic” organizers were giving out chicken soup to help “warm people up,” I read in the paper later. It wasn’t even a clinic, just a converted house, and it looked pretty ramshackle at that. Ok, would someone please clarify what distinguishes our “free market” system from Soviet Style rationing and shortages, because I’m finding it hard to see the difference. What bugs me is that doctors are supposed to be sophisticated thinkers, but I do not see a movement within the medical profession that acknowledges the realities and failings of our own system. There is a lot of hype and sound biting, but no action, period. So the emphasis on trivial events like the prom really is troublesome, in a serious way.
Second, there is the folly of anyone thinking that they should go into medicine as a means of climbing some social ladder. Don’t people know that medicine is an utterly bourgeois profession? The only people who hold it in the heightened level of esteem suggested by these patronizing “charity balls” are doctors and aspiring doctors themselves. This self-congratulatory element to the profession is even more annoying in light of the fact that medicine ITSELF is an upstart as far as professions. It only even gained respectibility with the advent of anti-biotics in the 1920’s or so and their widespread use starting sometime thereafter! For the longest time doctors were people’s last resort. And now, because of poor planning, antibiotics are losing their effectiveness, so those bad old days could soon return.
What happened to the time-honored tradition of marrying into old money? Or organizing a political coup? THOSE are the strategies of true social climbers. If people really want to learn how to be snobs they should start reading literature and history, not organizing proms or whatever. Rising to the upper echelons of the American middle class is hardly an aspiration worth drooling over. I am not really even kidding here. The naivete of these attitudes seriously bugs me.
This thread has generated some great discussion of values, what’s fun and what’s not, priorities, diversity, tolerance, and how silly it can be for grownups to have proms. It’s also generated too many instances of people restating others’ positions derisively and calling that discourse, and I’m closing this thread before it gets out of hand.
Thanks, everyone for posting.