In an effort to further explore the nearly-unique awesomeness that is me, I thought I would introduce yet another Q&A segment. I say "nearly unique", because as my friend over at The Crafty Doctor (thecraftydoctor.blogspot.com) could attest, I have a "twin from another mother." We both fall in the overlapping part of the Venn diagram of doctor, knitter, singer, gamer, geek, and now blogger apparently. We used to share the category of "future pediatrician" but we all know just how well that went. Read her blog for another perspective on this, but for the moment, here's mine. Once again, step with me onto my talk show stage...
Hello again, and welcome to Ask the Knitter Gamer Doctor, a show where we ask pointless questions to try to figure out how it is possible to function as all of those things at once!
Hi. Do we have to do this again?
Yes we do!
Fine
So, tell me...what's it like to be a knitter doctor? What could it possibly do for you?
It takes a lot of doing. Most of us went to medical school, frankly, because we actually want to learn things. Not a day went by in my resident career, or in my life since, that I didn't learn something, and that's how I like it. Knitting and medicine both offer so much to learn and so many niches for specialized expertise. The problem with being both, of course, is that learning requires time, the most precious commodity to us, and in training that learning time must be spent on medicine. My friend talks about wanting to use her on call time for knitting, which is pretty much exactly how I felt all the time, but neither of us is able to totally justify it.
Medical school, particularly the pre-clinical years, is different. While I hadn't yet become the crazy, obsessive knitter I am today, there were a few girls in our class known for sitting in lecture with knitting in progress. My inadvertent choice to nap during lectures seems a lot less productive, and now that I knit a lot more, I'm aware of just how much it can help focus and improve learning in lectures. This is one of those many situations in which I would love to call for a do-over.
The great goddess Knitting bestows lots of gifts on us, most of which would have saved my ass if I had developed them before medical school and residency. Focused attention, a sense of minor accomplishments adding up into a big one, patience, hope, planning and foresight all come from knitting, and it has helped me mature in a lot of ways. Residency, ironically, requires more of these and bestows more cash for raw materials, but sweeps away the time to knit.
That makes sense for your career path before, but what about your new one?
Pathology has the added benefit for the knitter of requiring color sense. I was drawn to cross stitch much earlier in my life because I adored the color, and then found out how much a part of knitting it is when I made the switch. Pathologists and histotechnologists work with color every day, and the similarities between staining a slide and dying a batch of yarn are vast. Pathology also requires attention to detail and the ability to see "the forest and the trees" at the same time, both of which are key to proper garment manufacture. Gross examination and sectioning a specimen require almost the same amount of hand control as the surgical procedure that removed it.
Have you knit any projects for work use or for your coworkers? What should I knit for the doctor in my life?
Stethoscope cozies. No question. After being introduced to them by a knitter friend, I learned to use DPN's in order to make one for myself. There has been little stopping since. Almost everyone who sees it asks about it, and it's a really simple knit. Next year, I may begin work on a microscope cozy. I think that might qualify me for admission by my psychiatry resident buddy, with a diagnosis of Obsessive-Delusional Knitter syndrome. Seriously, look for ODKS in the DSM-V whenever it finally appears, and you'll find my case history in some psychiatry journal.
My friend who introduced me to stethoscope cozies also introduced me to the knitting of stuffed body parts. Despite not actually being a doctor, she became fascinated with the idea of knitting body parts for people who don't have them. She knitted a pancreas for herself, since she has Type I diabetes, a gall bladder for a person who had recently undergone removal, and ovaries for me (long story). The best one, however, was for my friend James. She knitted him a heart. He's not a heart transplant patient or anything like that, but merely a cynical, sarcastic, heartless bastard in the best possible sense. Perhaps someday I will knit stuffed amigurumi microbes to rival those commercially made plushie ones.
Now, that, at least, is something I might have to leave in your capable hands. :) Mono is rather pretty, or maybe a plump bacillus.
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