Elevator Speeches

Here are my quickie explanations for some of my countercultural choices. If someone really wants to know what I think, I tell them without holding back, in a way I think they'll understand.

Not prescribing contraceptives

Credit: euthman

I counsel about everything, but there is enough cell biology to make me think human organisms form at sperm-egg fusion that I don't like the post-fertilization effects of hormonal contraceptives. Barriers are harder to find a problem with, to be honest, but sex at its best is a total gift of one person to another, and barriers block some of that gift. I know it's not a perfect world, but (not to be crass) I want everyone to have sex at its best and I think not having that has bigger ripple effects than we think.

Opposing abortion
There are a lot of people personally affected by abortion, and I don't know where you stand. I can't pretend I understand any particular person's story but I can at least speak to the science that I tried to delve into. There is enough cell biology to make me think human organisms form at sperm-egg fusion, but that's the easy part. If we think there's an organism with human DNA formed at fertilization, the hard question is, when do we protect it like we protect the mom? When we're potentially talking about--ending of millions of protectable human life--I say we should be cautious. 

Offering NFP

I really think women should learn about all their options, and the quality of the evidence that supports each of them. There are fabulous numbers attached to several fertility awareness-based methods, but we need to acknowledge that these studies haven't passed through the rigors of statistical significance, peer review, and FDA approval.

Being a Christian

I believe there is a truth, something objective that exists and that is right and wrong. If you think that, you realize that truth has staying power, which is why fads and memes slip away so fast. One of the things with the greatest staying power is a two thousand year old story of a man who reportedly rose from the dead to save sinners. I'm a sinner, and I thought that staying power was something worth looking into. The rest can't fit into an elevator speech.

Being a Catholic

History leads to Catholicism. You can tell that men writing in the early decades and centuries A.D. were very identifiably Catholic. The reason why I'm Catholic isn't because I love the customs, the people in the hierarchy, or the feelings I get. It's because I love Christ and I see that this is the Church He founded.

Being a consecrated virgin
The Jewish idea of the people of God as the bride of God really flowered within the Catholic faith, and in the early centuries there were women married permanently to God. That rite is used today, and it's a beautiful life.


This post was a draft for a long time, because it takes me a lot of introspection and lived experience to encapsulate things that are this controversial and this important to me. Hope this is helpful!

Chapel Veil Story

A few Fridays ago I got off early and went out to one of the monasteries for Mass. Too late I remembered that on Friday the conventual Mass was in the morning, not the evening. On my way home, I decided I might as well scope out the 24-hour adoration prospect I'd heard about at a parish near my house. I couldn't remember where it was and used some Google and GPS to find it. But it turns out that there are two St. Paul parishes in my diocese, and so by the time the whole evening was over I'd been to three churches.

And somewhere along the way I lost my chapel veil. I remained blissfully unaware of this fact until I got ready for Saturday evening Mass, which I was scheduled to cantor. My whole parish knows I wear a chapel veil, so I began to be irritated when I couldn't find it. "They'll all wonder why I'm not wearing it," I muttered as I turned my car and apartment upside down, "especially in the sanctuary...."

Eventually I gave up. God apparently wanted a dose of humility that day, and a lesson to keep a closer eye on my belongings! After all, the counsel of poverty encourages me to treat everything I own as borrowed from a highly respected friend.

My parish is an average 21st century parish: there is no basket of veils as in TLM communities. I went to the church ready to go bareheaded. I was the first one to arrive and started to flick lights on in the sacristy. Then an older couple entered, not dressed for Mass, and carrying boxes and bags. "Excuse me," said the woman in a quiet voice. "Are you a sister?"

The fabulous Jen Fulweiler veiling.

"I'm a consecrated virgin," I said smiling. "It's quite similar. What can I do for you?"

She held up the box in her hands. "Father John told me to knock on the door and to bring these in. My mother died and she left some items to the parish."

I helped her and her husband carry the things into the sacristy. She seemed a little reticent but asked me to open the box. "There are some weird things in there," she said, sounding embarrassed, "like those covers that women used to wear."

"The lace veils?" I asked.

"Yes."

Oh my goodness, I thought. This is so perfect. "Do you mind," I asked timidly, "if the parishioners use the veils?"

"No," said the woman. "That's what she gave them for, I suppose."

The woman and her husband left, and I opened the box. There were three black lace veils. (For any not familiar with the custom of veiling, unmarried women wear white, and married women wear black. This is analogous to nuns and sisters wearing white veils during their formation and black veils after they take vows.)

I'm not married, I thought. That was the reason why I retained my white veil: the only person in a church to wear a white veil and a ring should be a consecrated virgin or a sister who is part of an order without a habit. To veil in black is laden with meaning. It says: I am not available the same way, I now belong, I am absorbed by a husband and family.

But perhaps He is telling me that I am not available, I am absorbed like that. I wore the black veil at Mass. It was very strange: I've never veiled in black.

It made me think, though, about my relationship with Christ. How am I acting like a wife? St. Therese was once motivated to love God more by seeing a devoted newlywed wife. Shouldn't I act just as committed, just as completely taken, as a wife?

So for right now, I'm veiling in black. It's happened to me before that I've lost spiritual articles for very good reasons. (The best example I can think of is losing my Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary in college, a story for another day.) Perhaps this, too, was a good loss.

I am noticing more and more that I need to allow God to love me, to receive His grace, to be attentive to His wishes. I am drawn closer to the contemplative part of my vocation: more prayer, more practice of recollection. Being absorbed in Him doesn't exclude good works, but it does change my availability for them. 

Objections (and New Sidebar Gadget)

"You live at a breakneck pace. It stresses me out."

"How can you be a good consecrated virgin with all this work?"

"How can you be a good doctor when you're doing these side projects?"

The first objection comes most often from my body. Ulcerative colitis and residency don't play together well. A UC colon loves a predictable schedule, well-cooked and wholesome food eaten slowly. Those things are basically impossible in OB/GYN residency, where I'm eating quickly between triage patients and deliveries and trying not to have an episode of diarrhea during a C-section.

The second and third objections come from my conscience. I work a lot, and not by choice. I worked 2430 hours in the 244 days between July 1 and February 29. That's 11.6 hours for six days a week, with a seventh day off (and includes the days I was not at work while on vacation). I'd like for things to calm down so that I can focus more time on my relationship with Christ. I could work to the bone my entire life and never get to know the man who saved me and stooped to make me his little consecrated virgin. That would be a horrible tragedy.

I am also pursuing several projects on the side, including a video (done with shooting by the time this comes out!), a set of brochures (should be done with this one completely by the time this post hits), home improvement, blogging for two sites (including this one), keeping up the scholastic life (which includes writing and submitting essays to various journals), research (don't remind me about the phone calls I have to make for my research right now...), and attempting to network with others fighting for the culture of life (which involves archdiocesan events, meeting people for dinner and coffee, and emails). How can I take care of patients when I am so tired and have to finish all these notes so quickly? How can I study and be a good learner when I'm trying to get four doctors with crazy schedules to Chicago to shoot a video?

I just thought this picture was funny.

My response to these? Part of me argues that I'm in a rare time in my life when I can spring back from fatigue after working these hours, and I can spend this much energy on things. But the other part of me completely concedes that the objections are true and I'm doing it all wrong. 

It's unrealistic to respond by promising I'll never go to another pro-life or pro-family event, or that I'll never write another paper. I need to establish a new balance of work, leisure, and prayer.

Part of being less overwhelmed is beginning to assume that the duties of adult life (taxes, car maintenance, housecleaning) are not a project and are just like brushing teeth: no big deal, just gotta do it.

The other part is limiting my projects. I used to limit myself to five active projects in medical school. This may sound like a lot, but I remember when I said "no" to eleven awesome-sounding opportunities in one week. It was a good lesson: not everything that sounds awesome is really important to a career (much less to a life). I'd like to introduce you to a new side-bar gadget: the Project Kitchen. I'm not allowed more than two active projects, with up to four on the back burners.

Consecrated Virginity FAQ

On June 20, 2015, I became a consecrated virgin living in the world, according to canon 604 of canon law (the body of legal principles governing the Catholic Church). This vocation is ancient and new, and it's viewed positively by traditional Catholics. There is already an excellent FAQ on consecrated virginity in general, but because of previous posts and the very worldly nature of my schedule, I wrote this post.

What do you do?
As of this writing I'm an intern in obstetrics and gynecology, so I work fifty- to eighty-hour weeks at a hospital in labor and delivery, the emergency room, the operating room, and the women's health clinic. I also pursue research in fertility. But what I do is less important than what I am: a bride of Christ. I will live a life of prayer and penance and remain without marrying a human person (and without physical children) in this life.

You're a consecrated virgin and you spend seventy hours a week with pregnant people and researching fertility?
Yes. God has a sense of humor. (But there's also a long precedent of consecrated women caring for women, mothers, and children, so I'm not that strange.)

So! You're childfree?
I suppose it depends on how you define "childfree." If you mean "without children," then yes. I have made a permanent, irrevocable commitment to preserve my physical virginity, so I will never voluntarily have sex and thus won't have children. (Not only will I not bear my own children, but I cannot act as a surrogate or adoptive mother, since these actions don't dignify children according to their right to be raised by their father and mother. Accepting the moral teachings of the Church is part of being a Catholic, which is a prerequisite to consecration.)

But I thought "without children" was the meaning of the word "childless." I am not an expert, but I thought "childfree" meant at least two things besides "without children." I thought it implied 1) sexual activity and 2) a belief that children aren't desired. Even though childfree men and women often sincerely acknowledge that they love children (and some choose to be childfree to care for children of others), they have decided that for them, or for now, or forever, children are not desireable as a fruit of their sexuality.

Although I'm a sexual being and still live my sexuality, I don't have a "sex life," so I can't make the decision to be childfree (as I understand the word). Of course, if "childfree" only means "without children," I am childfree. (So's the pope, and he has plenty to say about the decision not to have children.)

So, you pretty much just had a wedding ceremony by yourself?
No. Human persons are meant to give themselves completely to the infinite Love that is God. Whether they do this through another human or directly (by God's grace!), they must make a total sacrifice of self so that nothing is left. To "marry oneself" is impossible--one can't give everything away and also be receiving it. The woman in the story I linked to was having a wonderful epiphany about the independence of her strength and happiness from the lives of other persons, but she wasn't marrying herself.

So no, I'm not marrying myself. Am I marrying anyone at all? Yes. "Virgo est qui Deus nubit," St. Ambrose said, "the virgin is she whom God has married."

Oprah covered the final vows of several Dominican sisters and pointed out that their vows are a marriage. However, she said that "the groom is present only in spirit." I remember watching that episode and laughing a little sadly. God the Son is more present and more real than any human person, even far away from the blessed sacrament.

God is not some imaginary thing we think off to. He stands under and continuously creates everything. It's because He has you in mind that you're existing right now. So no, I'm not marrying a vague spiritual idea. I'm marrying He who Is, who is more terrifyingly real than any thing.


Is this because you want to be a priest? Would you be a priest if you could?
No and no. I want to be the saint that Christ has in mind when He loves me. That saint is feminine, and has quite a lot on her plate without trying to be an alter Christus as God shapes only men to be. I love my call. I think it's probably the most fantastic one He's ever created!

I don't think the second question makes sense. It's like "what animal would you be?" It might tell a little about me, but it's bound to misrepresent me if it's taken absolutely. Just as I can't (and don't want to) become an eagle, I can't become a priest, since God gave us a fatherly priesthood. But just as I could (and might) say at a dinner-party "I'd like to be an eagle" because I would love to fly, I can say (like St. Therese) that I would love to be a priest because I want to resemble Him in every way I can imagine.

In reality, I have that flight of priestly glory in my consecrated virginity. Each of us has it in our calls to sainthood--we just have to take it, and bowl between the rails.

Did you choose this for more freedom from obedience? Habits?
No. Consecrated life developed from the second half of the first millennium to the end of the second. The developments were beautiful and helpful for the Church and the world of that time. And, like every development that the Holy Spirit rolls out, there is something perennially helpful about it. It is good that some wear "distinctive dress." It is good to have a structured community. But it is not necessary. Otherwise, how would so many early virgin martyrs and anchoresses have become holy?

In North America, most Catholics in the new evangelization associate orthodox consecrated life with full habits, thriving communities, and a return to the rigors of the evangelical counsels. All these things are fantastic and support orthodox religious life! However, living the counsels to the fullest, as Raniero Cantalamessa and Thomas Dubay point out, does not have to involve obedience to men, or a set degree of exterior poverty.

This was a hard pill for me to swallow, because I was wary of "consecrated women" who didn't wear habits, live in convents, have a rigorous rule of life and schedule, and exhibit the forms of obedience and poverty. Slowly, I began to recognize that I this state in life entailed complete submission to the counsels, although in a way I did not understand.

Is this something for ex-nuns?
I know consecrated virgins who left convents. In one case I know of, this was because there was not enough contemplative prayer after the novitiate in the order she joined. Consecrated virginity is not something for people who don't want to love our Lord.

Are consecrated virgins basically nuns?
Consecrated virgins have been called brides of Christ since the years of the early Church. This title that has also been accorded to nuns and religious sisters for centuries as well. But in important ways, we are not like nuns. Important aspects to the religious life include the charism of a founder, community life, and distinctive dress. Consecrated virginity does not have these elements of consecrated life, which developed later in Church history to adorn religious life.

So, you're a layperson (or in a lay movement, or you're a lay consecrated woman)?
The words "lay" and "layperson" have changed in the past century. "Lay" used to refer to anyone who was not in orders (anyone besides priests, deacons, and bishops). It then came to mean anyone who was not in consecrated life or in orders. In either sense, a consecrated virgin is as lay as a cloistered Carmelite.

Is consecrated virginity the same as making private vows?
No. Vows are made by a human soul to God; God consecrates a consecrated virgin. Because consecration is an act of God, it is permanent and irrevocable.

I do make a threefold propositum during the consecration, which beautifully lines up with the three counsels. However, I am not made a bride of Christ by my propositum. I am passively swept up as God deigns to consecrate me at the hands of His bishop.

Why isn't this a sacrament?
There are seven sacrosanct signs producing grace (signum sacrosanctum efficax gratiae). These are primary channels of grace God gave to save us, that will not change until the end of time. At the end of time, their purpose will be complete, and there will be no more baptisms, no more marriages, no more ordinations, and no more Masses. Sacramental realities will give place to non-sacramental realities.

Consecrated virginity is a non-sacramental reality. It belongs to the world to come, which is why it seems like a lack-of-something (e.g. like being childfree) here on earth.

What do consecrated virgins wear?

They wear modest clothing that suits their time, place, and work. They might dress a little more modestly than a faithful Catholic woman in their age group. Practically speaking, I wear scrubs in the hospital, conservative professional clothing under my white coat in clinics, and long skirts and modest shirts to Mass. Some consecrated women do not wear pants so that they can witness more completely to God's love in the gift of femininity. I wear pants because otherwise, I'd put up unnecessary barriers to friendships and evangelization.

Do you have a rule of life? An horarium? Superiors?
I do have a rule of life. My spiritual director approved it before my consecration. I do have an horarium, although prudent direction helps me adjust it as rotations change. I do not have superiors, although I treat my bishop as a loving father, for whom I would do anything that wouldn't jeopardize my moral or fiscal stability.

How do you live the evangelical counsels if you don't make vows?
This deserves a post all on its own! The counsels are meant to change our hearts to Christ's and make us thirst for God the Father. I live poverty by leading a radically simple life; this was rather easy as a medical student (living on loans) and is still easy as a resident (living to pay back loans). There is no money spent that is not spent for Christ and with Him in mind.

I live chastity by working to increase the purity of my intentions, so that I can be chaste in body and mind as I become single-hearted like Christ, wanting only whatever the Father wants. For instance, I often want to ask my upper-level residents for feedback because I want praise. That thirst for confirmation is better quenched by Him, so I choose chastity when I purify my intention and only ask for feedback when I want it.

I live obedience by constantly looking for the will of God. Paying attention to the circumstances and holy desires I find in the present moment, I look for ways to advance God's mission to save souls. For example, perhaps I choose to listen carefully to a patient's slow explanation of what is going on, even though I have so many more to see. Perhaps I accept my ignorance during my training as a way to be with Him during his humbling human childhood.

The Bishop has approved my consecration!

Praise God and pray for me on June 20!

Odd Jobs for an M4

I had no idea M4 would be like this. I am doing several weird jobs that I don't think most fourth-years do. I'm pretending as much as I was third year!

I'm a hiring manager and a travel agent.

This is something all fourth years do, but I'm adding it in just because it's so different from M3. For this job, I compiled a fancy-looking resume for a US senior medical student and packaged it with a nice personal statement. I scheduled some travel for her so that she has a broader experience to draw from as she interviews, and I tried to sublet her apartment as much as possible so that she doesn't break the bank. I managed her travel and get people to rescue her when she makes mistakes. (And boy is she a mess. She is constantly forgetting stuff at home, forgetting that when you don't change your address your new debit card gets mailed to the subleaser, forgetting that driving halfway across the country takes two days and you need sleep).

I am constantly checking my email for her, because interview invites come in fast and if you don't respond in a few hours, you don't get a spot. This chick's schedule is a mess. She's in Omaha for some NFP training thing for a whole week of primo interview time! And I had to schedule like seven interviews during her ER rotation. Hope she's okay with pulling nights and weekends. Hope she can pay for all the flights she's going to have to take. This residency nonsense isn't cheap.

I'm a biomedical engineer.
A weird twist of events led me to an engineering competition, which led me to a research project in which I am somehow the principle designer for a three-dimensional printed medical device. This is an amazing experience and I'd love to have a patent, but I burst out laughing every time I realize what I'm doing.

The engineering competition was an amazing experience. I didn't even know these things existed, but when I asked my brother (a senior engineering undergrad), he said, "Oh yeah, my roommate walked into one of those for the food. He almost won."

Here's what happened. An email was sent out from the College of Engineering (COE...boy that looks wierd after typing COM for years) with an application to a medically-themed engineering contest. It was sent to all the engineering undergrads and to all the med students. Forty engineering undergrads (out of almost 90 who applied) and as many med students as applied (four) were invited to attend. "Sponsors" (companies who fund the event, and you'll see why it takes so much funding in a second) provide the students with "needs statements" (things they want designed). In our contest, the needs statements were all related to rural and elderly health. In 48 hours, the students have to form teams, pick a needs statement, design and build a product (hardware, software, web or cloud components, prototype), and create a presentation to market it. The students get a chance to be engineers while being fed; the sponsors get free labor. At our contest, there was also a cash prize.

They sent out the needs statements the day before the contest. As I was driving there, I noticed that one had to do with gynecology. "Oh no," I said to myself. "I'm going to end up doing that one, I just know it." It didn't sound terribly interesting, and it also sounded impossible do without a pelvic exam on the person using the device. (Sorry if that was too much information.) I would rather have done one of the flashier projects and I had two favorites picked out.

Long story short: when the competition was only a few minutes underway, three teams had already seized my pet projects and there wasn't room for me on the team except as a consultant. And there were four people hanging around, teamless and needs-statementless. So I pitched the gynecology idea. And they shrugged and went with it.

We had ups and downs. Severe ups and downs. We oscillated between "this is the coolest invention since sliced bread" and "all we have is a smoking heap of circuitry." I wasn't extremely helpful. I can't write code, I can't build circuits, I can't sauder, and I have no experience with CAD software.

But I know how to sell stuff. I made the prezi and I sewed the fabric part of the invention. I sought out a nice mannequin to place our product on. This meant that I called half a dozen department stores and asked them the (probably) strangest question they'd been asked that day. "Hi, my name is mmatins and I'd like to ask your manager about female body forms or legs." Stranger still, I was successful. I carried a male torso model--completely unclothed--out of the back entrance of one store and stowed it in my trunk. I tried hard to remind myself I wasn't doing anything illegal. I then went back for a female torso on a stand, which I carried like some enormous, inappropriate lollipop through the food court and a parking lot.

At the end of the weekend, the COE announced that everyone would take home a small prize of $5-10. I thought, "well, that's nice. It covers part of my gas getting here." Then they announced second prize. "If we're going to get anything," I thought, "it'd be this," even though I pegged the two flashiest projects for first and second. Still, maybe.... Second prize wasn't us, so I internally shrugged. "It was a good experience," I began to tell myself. Then they announced first prize.

We won.

And because I later mentioned that I was at this contest when someone happened to be discussing 3D printing, I ended up giving a presentation on my first away rotation about bioprinting, during which I sounded like I knew something about it. And because I used to foodle around with Google Sketchup (now Sketchup Make), I could throw out a design for the product they wanted pretty easily. Sketchup + Google search + Wikipedia = makeshift engineering degree.

I'm a novice mistress.
Because there is no established curriculum for consecrated virginity in my Diocese, I am sort of making it all up as I go. This used to cause me slight distress, because there is such an emphasis on giving over one's will to another in the works of the Doctors of the Church and other authorities on the religious life. I shared this distress with my spiritual director and he smiled and shrugged. "What else could you do?" he asked.

I'm cobbling together a bunch of online classes and my weekly meetings with the other consecrated women. During these meetings, we cover what they think would help me and what I ask for. Recently, we finished a ten-point curriculum for living in intimacy with Jesus daily. (The love of God for the soul, the will of God, Scripture, love of neighbor, mutual love, Jesus in the midst of "two or three," the Eucharist, Love in community, Jesus forsaken, Mary, the Church, and the Holy Spirit.) We're moving on to forming a rule and leading a balanced earthly life. I asked that we do more on affective maturity and the evangelical counsels next. But I feel sort of like I do when I pretend to be an engineer.

My formal application for consecration is complete and submitted. My bishops are right now deliberating and discerning whether to admit me to the order of virgins. If they do (praypraypray), I will add another odd job: wedding planner.

What is formation like for consecrated virginity?

Disclaimer: you are now reading a post about formation by the one being formed, not by the formers, which is kind of like asking a second-grader about the objectives and milestones required to advance to the third grade. </disclaimer>

Formation for consecrated life is formation for the whole person, to prepare them to live as a spouse of Christ on earth and a mother of souls. Forming the whole person includes spiritual, intellectual, and affective components. For example, I am taking a Faith Foundations class through the School of Faith (it's free and available to you, too!) for intellectual formation right now. For affective and spiritual formation, I am following a rule of life and meeting with local focolarine weekly. Each week, we review and share on practical applications of topics like:

• God loves me immensely (where? when last week? even when you were suffering? how do you know? do you trust Him?)
• doing God's will in the present moment (even in the car? are you patient in the present moment? do you stay there with Him?)
• loving like God: first, unconditionally, with a smile (this is how you spend the whole day with Him! If only I knew anything about it....)
• the Word of God lived out in life (we're on this now and I'm totally confused)

Med school is also a help with affective maturity and discipline. When I read about old-fashioned religious obedience and humility (e.g. when St. Bernadette would be told "kiss the floor and leave" or when St. Therese would not excuse herself for misdemeanors she wasn't guilty of) I think, "oh, perfect. Med school is just like that." The third year med student is in a year-long postulancy where no no excuse is valid and no credit is given. And who needs hair shirts when you have to give up your personal time to do practice questions, study, and drive? It's very hard to keep a balanced lifestyle, so it really tests your discipline and prudence. (When should I study? How much? Am I doing my duties? What comes first: morning prayer, or morning report??)

Formation has been challenging but amazing. I am shocked at the changes I see in myself just in the past 12 weeks. The most important part has been having spiritual mothers to set an example of unconditional love. God is radiantly generous!

Vocation story

I have recently finished writing my vocation story! I was hard and easy at the same time. I felt like I should get it "right," and somehow have the perfect version...but that just resulted in me never typing anything. Finally, one day I just sat down and told it. Deo gratias.

Thoughts on Psychiatry

Phew! There has not been much time to blog lately. Two weeks ago, my first rotation started. Since then, my schedule has approximately been:

6:00am: wake up, drive to Mass
6:30am: Mass, Morning Prayer, and drive to the hospital
8:00am: see patients with my attending and one other student
12:00ish: lunch, Midday Prayer, and sometimes commuting to another place.
Afternoons were very variable: since I just finished two weeks on the alcohol and drug dependence unit, I often got out before 3:00. But on Wednesdays, I worked until 11:00pm in Admitting (and I would go to an evening Mass the following day so that I could get some extra sleep). Three afternoons, we had lecture, so I got out at 4:00 or 5:00. Since I am living at home now, I
Some time during the day: 30 minutes of Meditation
9:50pm ish: Night Prayer
10:00pm to 12:30am: bed

There have been about a hundred stories I wanted to retell here. I had no idea that opportunities for "medical matinses" would come so thick and fast in the third year. In almost every patient I see a huge, magnificent, intricate tale that deserves treatment by Homer or Hugo! I'm very grateful to be living at home because people are willing to listen to me, and that has replaced some of the function of this blog (good thing, too, because talking with someone has a much smaller activation energy or barrier cost than writing a blog post, in terms of time).

But I've also struggled with this rotation. I have had a sheltered life, and to see so many dysfunctional families, so much drug and substance abuse, so much poverty and desperation, and so much mental illness all in two weeks was a little overwhelming. There was a woman around my age seeing and screaming at her hallucinations, while I was trying to talk to her. There was a young man who can't accept his diagnosis because it doesn't fit into the reality created by his psychosis, so he can't see that he needs medicine. There was a little girl with new-onset intrusive thoughts, who cried in my arms because she was so afraid of her own thoughts and scared of all the other (even worse) pathology on the pediatric unit. And then there were all the addicts, with pasts full of loss and with futures of fragile sobriety (and I could never tell when they were lying to my face). Will the ones I got close to be safe on the outside?

I was struck by how human everyone is (and I've talked about that before). For instance, I spoke with at least two men who came in with homicidal ideations. In both of the conversations that I am thinking of, I was not afraid, but only filled with compassion and love.

I'm also in the process of pursuing my vocation, which means I'm in formation one night a week and trying to use Sundays for formation, too. I'm navigating the city and trying to attend daily Mass and Adoration in the midst of a crazy schedule. I am living more and more of the particulars of my future life, and it's hard and wonderful. I might post my vocation story here...we'll see.

Summer plans

This is a relief over a confessional in Ardennes, France.

Last time I posted about my summer, God was asking me to relinquish my plans. Just like he did in a year ago, he returned my plans to me after a time for resignation. Both times, they were changed fundamentally: they became His plans, and I stopped depending on them for confidence. Both times, I was reminded of the real source of my hope and sustenance. Ah, constant conversion, how much I need thee.

This summer I will be taking part in the first summer externship for pro-life medical students sponsored by Medical Students for Life of America. Yay! I will go to D.C. for a week and take a crash course in ethical research, then work with a physician for five weeks researching a topic related to beginning- and end-of-life issues and the underserved. I am happy to have something to do and hope that my work is fruitful.

I am spending a little over a week at home to see my siblings, and at the end of the summer I am hoping to attend the informational conference on consecrated virginity lived in the world (brochure). This is a form of consecrated life available to Catholic virgins since the earliest days of the Church, which has seen a new springtime since 1970 when it was renewed for women outside religious orders and codified in Canon 604 of Canon Law. Consecrated virgins in this country often choose to become members of the U.S. Association for Consecrated Virgins, which is gives an annual information conference available for all interested.

Classes begin August 6, so there won't be much time to come down from the Transfiguration of the conference before my second year of medical school begins!

Daily Schedule 2

My day has changed a little bit, since I'm part of some study group and my roomie has moved in.

7:00ish - wake up, pray. Only sometimes walk to mail kiosk, get mail.
8:00 - breakfast
8:30 - leave for school
9:00 - class
12:00 lunch/interest group meetings
1:00 - more class
3:00 - more class or lab (some days) or group meeting
5:30 - Mass, only sometimes
6:30 - go to group meeting (or to anatomy lab)
9:00 - go home, study
11:00 - Evening prayer and bed

Ew. I liked the first schedule better. (Guess who's going to quit some groups?) I want daily Mass, and I want more prayer. Meetings and stuff take the best parts of my day and keep me in the tunnel of a very worldly day. Here's my goal for the next two weeks:

6:45 - wake up, pray
7:00 - walk with notecards on iPhone (get mail)
7:30 - get ready
8:00 - breakfast
8:20 - leave for school (traffic is up since the undergrads started school last weekend), Rosary in car
9:00 - class
12:00 - Midday Prayer, lunch, study (occasional interest group meeting: I only want to be part of OB/GYN and psychiatry, but maybe I'll dip into internal med and family med)
1:00 - class and studying afterwards
5:30 - Mass, sometimes confession beforehand, read from the Church fathers on virginity
6:15 - go home and study
10:30 - Evening Prayer, dishes, bed

Med Student Life and Premed Questions, pt 1

First and second year. One of the things I really wanted to know as a premed was what med students' schedules look like. I have attached my schedule for this week and next week as pictures. We have a block curriculum and have tests every two or three weeks. Click to enlarge.

Premeds: ask the first- and second-years (not the people who present the curriculum) what the curriculum is like: how often do you have tests? do you learn by system, by region, by clinical presentation...? when do you get clinical skills? do you have problem-based learning or clinical correlations? are you required to shadow or volunteer? when do you see standardized patients or use the simulation center? are the students competitive?