The Rachel Sullivan

I have decided to delete Instagram from my cellular device. It was starting to become a wasteland of promised connection. It was doing nothing but wasting my time. and so it had to go. in fact, it probably brought me further away from people

I am in medical school. In the second semester. The end of a test cycle is near, about a week away. I think less is more when it comes to studying. There is a big emphasis on spending all day studying but it all starts to blur together after a couple of hours.

Earlier this week I had a clinical exam practical. It was covering vitals – temperature, pulse, respirations, blood pressure, pain. And respiratory work flow – inspecting, auscultating, palpating, percussing. Feedback I received from the examiner and standardized patient both including being more confident. Which I find to be quite odd, I find myself to be quite a confident person, especially socially. The standardized patient mentioned – this is your stage! when you enter. and I find that so odd because for So long I have been student. and being student to me meant being small, don’t be in the way etc. and now all of a sudden this level of gregariousness is asked of us. We are first year students. This is the first couple of times I have taken a blood pressure on someone, and No matter how much I practice within a week time span, it will never be comparable to someone who has done it for 6 months or a year. I don’t know, I find the expectation quite odd. But I guess that is what it takes to be a doctor.

I think what they really asking for is medical theater. but they can’t quite say that.

I have deleted instagram. what will come in its place. one addiction swapped for another. I think chatgpt might be my next placeholder. I use it as a proxy for therapy and it is not bad at times. but it is not the same as humans. It has a certain level of confidence to it. In fact, its very confident. which I think is the problem with it, it’ll be like completely wrong but it sounds some what correct and its enough for us to be like, sounds correct, and move on.

I have been reading this book, Visual Intelligence by Amy Herman. Encouraging us to not just look but to truly observe, and she does so by showing works of art and going through the analysis of it. Asking if we caught certain details. It is an illuminating experience to remind what it is to see and observe in the world. I’m intrigued to see what it encourages me to observe more of in my own world.

Since deleting Instagram – I will make sure everyone knows I have done this, I would like to use my website more. I paid for the yearly access to WordPress. Gave GoDaddy a lot of money for the URL, might as well use it. probably what I write will be hot garbage for a little bit but thats ok, that is the point.

This weekend is Valentine’s Day. So, I think I’ll take myself on a nice long walk around downtown St Pete tonight to celebrate. I love walking around the city, seeing the people, feeling the energy of those around. Maybe talk to some people, and then retire home. It has been so cold in Florida the past couple of weeks, and I truly just do not own the clothing necessary for the cold. When I went to NYC a couple months ago, one thing I noticed was that most people were appropriately dressed for the weather, if not even more so than I would have originally thought to dress myself.

Until next Friday