My alternate career

One of the questions that has left me stumped is Ross's Q3: What would you be doing if you were not pursuing the goals you said you wanted to pursue? (this is a paraphrase)

Gimme a break people! I am a surgeon, have worked in two separate specialties within surgery (Trauma, and Cancer) and now am looking to totally change the career path and enter corporate world. And you want one more path? Check in some parallel universe.

Then I was reading Mandy's Blog. She is a Darden student, and she posted this video.

 

This man is the sort of professor you dream about. He is exciting, and excited, he is informative and funny, loves Star Trek AND Football!! (Seriously, how many people in this world want to be Captain Kirk as well as play in NFL?) 

But most of all, he is excited about teaching. Not the traditional academia, but teaching, helping, nurturig (Now i sound like a New Agie)

And i remembered it felt like to teach. We teach undergrads when doing post-graduation. And it was fun. We used to take our students to late night operations, (thats not a euphemism),  there were impromptu discussions during ward rounds In 1998-99, even an internet search was a new and exciting thing, and we used to have chat sessions in yahoo on weekends. None of these was traditional, none of these were done anywhere close to the extent we did it either before or after us, we all had fun, and we all learned.

I was, for a year, an assistant professor too. It was a new college for me, a new state, and a totally different set of students. Indians will understand when i say that the earlier college was Government, this was private. Nowhere near he same aptitude, or attitude. I taught enthusiastically though, and within weeks, felt confident enough to ask the group of 25 students allotted to me to attend the emergencies. It was unprecedented, but they did come, and we did have fun. To the extent that in a multidisciplinary class that I took with faculties of other departments, i got a applause on arrival. (there were some pissed senior profs that day) 

This is what I would have loved to do: teach by participation. I am good in a team that learns and does at the same time. This will be an asset in college as well as (presumably) in corporate life, especially healthcare sector, which will always keep changing.

This is going to be my theme for that essay. I know its crude, doesn't properly connect the dots and all that, but i was excited to have atleast found a theme. 

And by the way, if you have an hour, watch the video. If you only have 5 minutes, jus watch the first 5 minutes. Randy Pausch passed away on 25th july. RIP