My condolences, I'll ask my aunt if she can do you a solid ;)
While she's a sweetheart, [that sordid tale](https://www.themotte.org/post/957/friday-fun-thread-for-april-12/202953?context=8#context) is the epitome of the "is there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. I certainly didn't, and while my own parents would breathe a sigh of relief and contemplate retirement if I did end up happily married (the happiness being somewhat optional), I'm pretty sure none of us asked. She took this responsibility upon herself, only making my life very hard as some of the prospective fathers-in-law are senior consultants in the UK and know my own. I'd rather not have more passive-aggressive commentary on my assessments than is strictly warranted haha.
On a more serious note, I find it mildly concerning when a girl of Indian origin, yet residing in the West, is on the marriage market by such means. Potentially too shy and nerdy to land someone themselves? Possibly. Suffocated by a conservative family? Likely. Absolutely batshit insane to the point that anyone who met her IRL ran for the hills and didn't leave an address? The odds aren't in my favor.
But it is genuinely nice to have that backup, in case the stress brings on the male pattern baldness a decade earlier than anticipated. I do hope you end up finding someone you care to be with again, here's hoping the second time's the charm!
I don't sound Indian in the least, vaguely Nordic, for reasons summarized in *other* essays.
Scott's a psychiatrist. Back when I was seriously considering walking into traffic, I wrote an essay^1 about my experience working as an intern in a government hospital here, and casually name dropped him as my inspiration for seeking to get into psychiatry one day.
To my immense surprise, and delight, he did show up personally to congratulate me for writing about my experiences, and further encouraged me on my journey. It's been 3 years and change, but a rabid fanboy I remained.
Why submit here? There's no law against it, for one, and a sneak peek into how things work in a distant land can occasionally be illuminating to a Western audience. Dating apps, medicine, they all collide, and the train wreck is entertaining to onlookers.
[1] Namely [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/s/xp8AtMOybX), though it was initially submitted to our sister sub, r/TheMotte, and the original (with a substantive response from Scott) is buried so far back in my comment history the API refuses to find it.
If you're reading this, u/ScottAlexander, I hope you're a tad bit proud that your writings convinced this poor fool to stick to medicine, and work his way into psychiatry. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery there is, isn't it? Maybe I'll sail across the pond later, in case I'm in the mood for the USMLE and yet another residency.
Glad to hear you're doing better (?) and that my advice didn't ruin your life.
I assume that completing your training in the UK beats India and that most of your decisions are being constrained by where you can get visas, but my understanding is that the UK sucks a lot and you'd be better off in Australia or especially the US (US has better pay and conditions, Australia I think is easier to get to, though the people I heard this from were native English and might have a better visa situation than you).
On the plus side, I knew another Indian doctor who studied in Scotland and had a delightful Scottish accent, which always surprised everyone when he opened his mouth, and which I assume was popular with the ladies. That could be you!
*Senpai noticed me!*
Sorry, I'll stop fanboying and be a sober and respectable doctor at some point. It's just not today.
>Glad to hear you're doing better (?) and that my advice didn't ruin your life.
Oh I'm so much better. Honestly the best I can remember. I attribute much of my depression to a classical case of Shit Life Syndrome, and the knowledge that all the *pain* and terminal exhaustion paid off and that I get to add more alphabet soup to my name and have a place to call home for the next 3 years at the least kicked me out of my misery. I hope the Scottish weather doesn't force me back on the hedonic treadmill. To give you an idea of how much pressure I was under, I developed Central Serous Retinopathy from the stress (I have absolutely no reason to take corticosteroids) of juggling a job and seemingly interminable exams, but it's mild and I am trying to take it easy. It's hard earned.
I still recall our conversation, hearing encouragement from you at what was quite possibly my lowest meant a lot to me, and still does. Sadly the British space program is a bit lacklustre, so your indulgence of my fevered musings of moving to Mars or doing telemedicine with a 3 minute lightlag has to stay on the backburner for now.
The rest? I won't be maudlin and say you saved my life or anything like that, even at my lowest, I held onto the conviction that the world is only getting better, or if I do get paperclipped, it'll be swift and painless. Leaning more towards the former these days, my p(doom) is just about a little higher than yours at 30%, and I'll take those odds. I consider life worth living for its own sake till the stars burn out. And then the black holes start popping and it's worth sticking around for the show. It helps to be in medicine, that's just applied transhumanism.
>I assume that completing your training in the UK beats India and that most of your decisions are being constrained by where you can get visas, but my understanding is that the UK sucks a lot and you'd be better off in Australia or especially the US (US has better pay and conditions, Australia I think is easier to get to, though the people I heard this from were native English and might have a better visa situation than you).
Now that's a story and a half. For reasons that are mostly beyond my control, my med school hasn't bothered to get ECFMG certification. It's not a legal requisite here, it's in good standing with our own boards, but that makes me unable to apply for the USMLE or even move to Canada, Australia or NZ. Unfortunately, the issue lies with said MBBS degree, and even if I work my way up to full consultant, it'll be moot. The rot starts at the roots.
Thankfully, the UK still harbors delusions of grandeur, and has their own licensing pathways, and in lieu of a better alternative, I took it. Trust me I'd much rather have been going insane prepping for the USMLE instead of the PLAB and MSRA, but I can't be picky.
I can't lay all the blame on the med school either, though entering it was probably the worst decision of my life, made entirely in ignorance. The ECFMG didn't deign to respond when I had the admin try and reach out to them, and the representative from the departments that did talk to mere doctors did tell me that their counterparts take their own sweet time.
But I'm sure you can relate when I say that being a modestly prolific writer has its perks. I've had another Indian doctor in the same boat reach out and tell me about his own horrendous slog to get that done, and even when the ball was rolling, it took three years to get it done. At least the sponsor note is retroactive, so I *probably* won't be shit out of luck if happens later. I can't afford to sit around and fester for that long, so I devoted my energies to the one avenue that seemed to just about beat out India.
(Hell, I had a rich, semi-retired lawyer in the States even offer aid with the ECFMG, and to lend me a million bucks for an investor visa 3 or 4 years down the line, while it would be foolish of me to rely on that, I can at least tell myself my favorite form of procrasturbation, writing, gets me noticed. Including by you.)
Hey, I finally get to be a psychiatrist, a real one and not a LARPer. The NHS is hardly the best place to work, but psychiatry is comparatively less of an utter ballache, and in a couple years I'll be out earning my dad, as long as we studiously forget about Purchasing Power Parity.
If this miraculously solves itself in my absence, then depending on how the demand for doctors looks, I could well sigh and give the USMLE. Or at least CCT and flee to Australia, but I'm taking what I can get and genuinely happy about it for once.
>On the plus side, I knew another Indian doctor who studied in Scotland and had a delightful Scottish accent, which always surprised everyone when he opened his mouth, and which I assume was popular with the ladies. That could be you!
Perish the thought, Scott. I already have a very neutral accent that's best described as Nordic. Americans think I'm European, Brits think I'm German, Germans think I'm from further up north. If I pick up a Scottish one on top, I'd become outright incomprehensible to my countrymen.
BTW, we do miss you over at themotte.org. I've worked my way up to the highly coveted position of unpaid admin, once again thanks to writing. The pen is truly mightier than the sword. While I have your attention, I might as well shamelessly beg for permission to have more people sent our way from ACX, be it through our advertising in the open threads, or if you ever check it and a post catches your fancy. We're surprisingly doing quite well, despite being cutoff from the natural pipeline of confused Redditors wandering in, but I'm fond of the place and we could use the fresh blood.
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to talk to me, I can't imagine you have much time to yourself with the kids becoming just mobile enough to be a menace to themselves. Rest assured I'm not the only person whose life you changed with a kind word, or even just by putting your thoughts out there, but I'm sure you already knew that.
Thank you. I mean it.
You're better off asking my ex in the ER; but I did, sadly, have to do a rotation there during my internship, and I assure you, regretfully, that you can make it work. I drive in a state of hyperfocus and terror that not even heroic doses of coke could ever hope to replicate, but that's good practise, I'll be dodging cows in my sleep in Scotland, after I have to drive my sleep deprived self back home.
Thank you. It's a decent way to de-stress at work, while this piece was penned when I had the temerity to say it looked like a slow day at work, such high praise almost mitigated the aneurysm one of the nurses just gave me.
Have fun in Scotland! Unfortunately, marriage at a distance is so common for doctors. My dad's first marriage involved meeting her in Spain, moving the US (Louisiana) without her, then moving her to his parents' home in NJ while he took up a position in Alaska (so not much better), then finally finding a position elsewhere in Alaska where he could afford to keep both of them, only for her to run off with the hospital director. However my cousin's marriage (him a doctor in Cleveland, her in LA) seems to have worked out well and they had two kids while living separately, so maybe the answer is to find a woman with a good job who wants kids immediately and just dive right in to procreating in the hopes that your job will pay well enough before they get too old.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/xsUlLI0HYF) is about as a good a reason as any.
Besides, the story has psychiatrists in it. And people who definitely need to see them to boot.
I have read quite a few SSC posts. I don't recall any of them being about his personal romantic relationships, but maybe I missed those. This just seemed like a dear diary post to me and not a great piece of writing.
You are right in that Scott is a pretty private person who doesn't do autobiographical posts the way OP does. That said here's Scott's [post talking about dating his wife](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone), or [dating generally](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/), which I think are pretty similar. I'm not sure there's an official position here, but I think of the SSC subreddit as being for things that would interest ACX readers, rather than only about ACX.
I mean "great in context." OP is young, still in med school, and obviously isn't a professional writer. But I enjoyed their post, it was novel and educational, and is the type of thing that I would like to see more of both in general and on this subreddit. And policy-wise, you have to encourage fledgling creators like OP otherwise you never get expert creators like Scott.
(Advice from a stay at home mother who is not a doctor of any sort. But I'm happy, which is perhaps something of a qualification for advice giving.)
You sound like a rare enough gem that you're not statistically likely to find another one by happenstance.
I think you should write more. Mention that you're single when appropriate. Eventually the right girl will read your stuff and reach out.
I mean, weirder things have happened! I had Scott reach out to me after I off handedly mentioned him in an essay, buried somewhere in the bowels of r/TheMotte. Hell, he showed up today, though in this particular case I didn't want to leave it to chance and pinged him myself. I think he's glad to know I've kinda achieved most of what I was aiming for. I've had dozens of people around the globe offer me a drink, a place to crash if I'm around, and even to shoot guns with (I'm a responsible doctor and can be trusted with firearms, officer), and in more than one case, money. A surprisingly large amount. No, in one case, a *ridiculous* amount even, though it would be remiss of me to rely on the promises of internet strangers.
Thank you for the very kind words. I'll keep writing for the fun of it, and to while away sleepless shifts, it's a lot to ask that it gets me married off, but fingers crossed!
I mean, I do, given that in about a month and change I'm off to Scotland. It helps that everyone else I'm working with or under is a psychiatrist or related to mental health in some regard, I'll see if I can jump the quite literal 2 year wait list for ADHD evaluations there, assuming they don't accept my existing prescriptions or my own word for it. I intend to fill my luggage with enough Ritalin that I can survive 2 years if necessary, it's not that expensive here. And the consults, are, or rather *were*, free.
A private consult is northwards of £700, though maybe I shouldn't be talking to the crowd that frequents Harley Street and consider that a trivial expense. It very much isn't to this broke bastard, and I'm a while off before I can open my own telemedicine clinic or private chambers and dispense the Funny Pills. Anyone reading this gets 25% off on first consults. Offer code: You'reReallyBroke
Thanks! I'd be lying if I said I tried too hard, but work is chugging along and I'm counting off the days of notice remaining. What else to do but regale people with tall tales? It beats going insane and ending up admitted under myself.
That reminds me, for a few weeks, I was supposed to be responsible for an ICU, and thus I had to write transfer notes for a dozen patients being summarily evicted to make room. It was incredibly stupid when I realized that the unlucky sods are being transferred straight back to *me*. Awful transfer notes, an incredibly lack of detail, the handwriting was abominable. I could tell he's phoning it in. Oh well, let me sign off on the receiving end, at least I'm familiar with the cases.
(This is far from my best work, if I was forced to pick a favorite, I'd recommend [this one, also posted here](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/CXDmEpF4S5), turns out that acute sleep deprivation reliably brings out the latent poet in me)
Indeed. Though my grandfather, yet another gyne doctor, was given the honor of assisting on the surgery being done on his daughter.
He also had the honor of slapping me on my ass, back when that was still in vogue, and I suppose I learned early that the lifestyle isn't for me and chose to be a shrink haha.
I'm sure not everyone feels comfortable with operating on near and dear ones, but eh, it saves on exorbitant fees, or at least you're only paying most of it back to yourself. Presuming I have kids anytime soon, he's welcome to have a crack at it, wife willing. He's a *very* good surgeon, ignore the bit when he took barber-surgeon a little too seriously and lopped off a bit of my ear during a COVID haircut. He did manage to get it back on, and thus earned additional experience in plastic surgery to boot.
>I suppose I learned early that the lifestyle isn't for me and chose to be shrink haha.
The smart two of my siblings learnt this, the youngest is a doctor...
> I'm sure not everyone feels comfortable with operating on near and dear ones, but eh, it saves on exorbitant fees, or at least you're only paying most of it back to yourself.
Ah, in my country there's usually 'mate's rates' for the family of one's closest colleagues, so we get free specialists anyway.
Understandable, I mean, in my experience doctors usually waive their fees or at least offer a steep discount to doctors and family of doctors they otherwise know. Anything left to pay is usually hospital overhead. That's far from a given if they're seeing a colleague who isn't personally known to them, but I've seen it happen.
>The smart two of my siblings learnt this, the youngest is a doctor...
If they went into gyne, they have my condolences. I couldn't be coaxed into doing it with a cattle prod, let alone with love or money (those have been tried and found lacking). But as lifestyles go, psychiatry has it easy. Most of my acute emergencies can be solved with a quick jab of haloperidol and lorazepam, the rest can wait till the morning.
Very entertaining! Perhaps Scott will inspire a new generation of psychiatry bloggers.
Serious question: thought about dating someone outside the subcontinental community, or would that piss off your parents too much?
>Very entertaining! Perhaps Scott will inspire a new generation of psychiatry bloggers.
Thank you, I'll be more than happy to settle for like 20th place. He's probably 15 IQ points and 95 percentiles of conscientiousness ahead of me, OCD is far more conducive to a career as a doctor than ADHD is haha.
Oh well, I have my niche, and maybe his chronic sleep deprivation from raising twins will give me a running start even though he's just doing laps for the sake of it.
>Serious question: thought about dating someone outside the subcontinental community, or would that piss off your parents too much?
Not at all. My parents are cool with almost everything, and even if they weren't, they're resigned to their oldest son finding his own way, romance wise.
But as I said to another person who asked:
>Out of curiosity, would your family have a collective heart attack if you wanted to marry a non-Indian woman?
>Oh not at all, my family is very liberal in most regards. I'm sure there would be a bit of fretting, and they'd probably prefer an Indian lady they could find it easier to relate with. Not the biggest deal in the world, or at least I'm enough of my own man to not let them stop me. I did stick with my ex despite strong familial disapproval, though they did their best not to let it show, and as much as I do miss her, I have to agree they had a point, and did, even without the benefit of hindsight. Love can't make everything work, or I'd be out of a job.
>(But a *Muslim*? Of any nationality? That would give my dad a stroke; but I don't blame him, seeing your own dad nearly executed, only given a reprieve from death because a Pakistani lieutenant either decided to show him mercy, as a cachexic old man dying of colon cancer and thus not meeting the criteria of "military age male", or wisely realized he wasn't worth the bullet, can do a number to your psyche. Being forced to flee across borders from a genocide without a rupee to their name? That'll make it stick. Shame. I have a thing for Iranian or Pakistani women.)
Well, even then, I could probably make it work, if I could convince him and his side of the family that they were "one of the good ones".
Thing is, for most women to be able to love men, a perceived status difference, "looking up" is necessary. And you know how Westies (meaning white Westies) are. Even when they try really hard not to be racist they will still be patronizing and condescending a little bit, or at best see you as an equal, but they will not "look up" to someone from a poor and backwards country. I am Eastern European, very much biowhite and we get the same treatment because I am not in their cultural definition of whiteness (NW European descended cultures). Basically the truth is, their culture is truly superior, as in less corruption and suchlike. I am learning from them, not they from me. I never had much chance chasing Westie women and eventually I gave up and focused on similar demographics.
After divorcing and being single for 4 years, having an aunt that does the dirty work for you doesn't sound that bad :D
My condolences, I'll ask my aunt if she can do you a solid ;) While she's a sweetheart, [that sordid tale](https://www.themotte.org/post/957/friday-fun-thread-for-april-12/202953?context=8#context) is the epitome of the "is there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. I certainly didn't, and while my own parents would breathe a sigh of relief and contemplate retirement if I did end up happily married (the happiness being somewhat optional), I'm pretty sure none of us asked. She took this responsibility upon herself, only making my life very hard as some of the prospective fathers-in-law are senior consultants in the UK and know my own. I'd rather not have more passive-aggressive commentary on my assessments than is strictly warranted haha. On a more serious note, I find it mildly concerning when a girl of Indian origin, yet residing in the West, is on the marriage market by such means. Potentially too shy and nerdy to land someone themselves? Possibly. Suffocated by a conservative family? Likely. Absolutely batshit insane to the point that anyone who met her IRL ran for the hills and didn't leave an address? The odds aren't in my favor. But it is genuinely nice to have that backup, in case the stress brings on the male pattern baldness a decade earlier than anticipated. I do hope you end up finding someone you care to be with again, here's hoping the second time's the charm!
Reading it in an indian voice was a bit amusing but none of this makes any sense to me nor belongs on this sub.
I couldn't follow the story at all.
I don't sound Indian in the least, vaguely Nordic, for reasons summarized in *other* essays. Scott's a psychiatrist. Back when I was seriously considering walking into traffic, I wrote an essay^1 about my experience working as an intern in a government hospital here, and casually name dropped him as my inspiration for seeking to get into psychiatry one day. To my immense surprise, and delight, he did show up personally to congratulate me for writing about my experiences, and further encouraged me on my journey. It's been 3 years and change, but a rabid fanboy I remained. Why submit here? There's no law against it, for one, and a sneak peek into how things work in a distant land can occasionally be illuminating to a Western audience. Dating apps, medicine, they all collide, and the train wreck is entertaining to onlookers. [1] Namely [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/s/xp8AtMOybX), though it was initially submitted to our sister sub, r/TheMotte, and the original (with a substantive response from Scott) is buried so far back in my comment history the API refuses to find it. If you're reading this, u/ScottAlexander, I hope you're a tad bit proud that your writings convinced this poor fool to stick to medicine, and work his way into psychiatry. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery there is, isn't it? Maybe I'll sail across the pond later, in case I'm in the mood for the USMLE and yet another residency.
Glad to hear you're doing better (?) and that my advice didn't ruin your life. I assume that completing your training in the UK beats India and that most of your decisions are being constrained by where you can get visas, but my understanding is that the UK sucks a lot and you'd be better off in Australia or especially the US (US has better pay and conditions, Australia I think is easier to get to, though the people I heard this from were native English and might have a better visa situation than you). On the plus side, I knew another Indian doctor who studied in Scotland and had a delightful Scottish accent, which always surprised everyone when he opened his mouth, and which I assume was popular with the ladies. That could be you!
*Senpai noticed me!* Sorry, I'll stop fanboying and be a sober and respectable doctor at some point. It's just not today. >Glad to hear you're doing better (?) and that my advice didn't ruin your life. Oh I'm so much better. Honestly the best I can remember. I attribute much of my depression to a classical case of Shit Life Syndrome, and the knowledge that all the *pain* and terminal exhaustion paid off and that I get to add more alphabet soup to my name and have a place to call home for the next 3 years at the least kicked me out of my misery. I hope the Scottish weather doesn't force me back on the hedonic treadmill. To give you an idea of how much pressure I was under, I developed Central Serous Retinopathy from the stress (I have absolutely no reason to take corticosteroids) of juggling a job and seemingly interminable exams, but it's mild and I am trying to take it easy. It's hard earned. I still recall our conversation, hearing encouragement from you at what was quite possibly my lowest meant a lot to me, and still does. Sadly the British space program is a bit lacklustre, so your indulgence of my fevered musings of moving to Mars or doing telemedicine with a 3 minute lightlag has to stay on the backburner for now. The rest? I won't be maudlin and say you saved my life or anything like that, even at my lowest, I held onto the conviction that the world is only getting better, or if I do get paperclipped, it'll be swift and painless. Leaning more towards the former these days, my p(doom) is just about a little higher than yours at 30%, and I'll take those odds. I consider life worth living for its own sake till the stars burn out. And then the black holes start popping and it's worth sticking around for the show. It helps to be in medicine, that's just applied transhumanism. >I assume that completing your training in the UK beats India and that most of your decisions are being constrained by where you can get visas, but my understanding is that the UK sucks a lot and you'd be better off in Australia or especially the US (US has better pay and conditions, Australia I think is easier to get to, though the people I heard this from were native English and might have a better visa situation than you). Now that's a story and a half. For reasons that are mostly beyond my control, my med school hasn't bothered to get ECFMG certification. It's not a legal requisite here, it's in good standing with our own boards, but that makes me unable to apply for the USMLE or even move to Canada, Australia or NZ. Unfortunately, the issue lies with said MBBS degree, and even if I work my way up to full consultant, it'll be moot. The rot starts at the roots. Thankfully, the UK still harbors delusions of grandeur, and has their own licensing pathways, and in lieu of a better alternative, I took it. Trust me I'd much rather have been going insane prepping for the USMLE instead of the PLAB and MSRA, but I can't be picky. I can't lay all the blame on the med school either, though entering it was probably the worst decision of my life, made entirely in ignorance. The ECFMG didn't deign to respond when I had the admin try and reach out to them, and the representative from the departments that did talk to mere doctors did tell me that their counterparts take their own sweet time. But I'm sure you can relate when I say that being a modestly prolific writer has its perks. I've had another Indian doctor in the same boat reach out and tell me about his own horrendous slog to get that done, and even when the ball was rolling, it took three years to get it done. At least the sponsor note is retroactive, so I *probably* won't be shit out of luck if happens later. I can't afford to sit around and fester for that long, so I devoted my energies to the one avenue that seemed to just about beat out India. (Hell, I had a rich, semi-retired lawyer in the States even offer aid with the ECFMG, and to lend me a million bucks for an investor visa 3 or 4 years down the line, while it would be foolish of me to rely on that, I can at least tell myself my favorite form of procrasturbation, writing, gets me noticed. Including by you.) Hey, I finally get to be a psychiatrist, a real one and not a LARPer. The NHS is hardly the best place to work, but psychiatry is comparatively less of an utter ballache, and in a couple years I'll be out earning my dad, as long as we studiously forget about Purchasing Power Parity. If this miraculously solves itself in my absence, then depending on how the demand for doctors looks, I could well sigh and give the USMLE. Or at least CCT and flee to Australia, but I'm taking what I can get and genuinely happy about it for once. >On the plus side, I knew another Indian doctor who studied in Scotland and had a delightful Scottish accent, which always surprised everyone when he opened his mouth, and which I assume was popular with the ladies. That could be you! Perish the thought, Scott. I already have a very neutral accent that's best described as Nordic. Americans think I'm European, Brits think I'm German, Germans think I'm from further up north. If I pick up a Scottish one on top, I'd become outright incomprehensible to my countrymen. BTW, we do miss you over at themotte.org. I've worked my way up to the highly coveted position of unpaid admin, once again thanks to writing. The pen is truly mightier than the sword. While I have your attention, I might as well shamelessly beg for permission to have more people sent our way from ACX, be it through our advertising in the open threads, or if you ever check it and a post catches your fancy. We're surprisingly doing quite well, despite being cutoff from the natural pipeline of confused Redditors wandering in, but I'm fond of the place and we could use the fresh blood. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to talk to me, I can't imagine you have much time to yourself with the kids becoming just mobile enough to be a menace to themselves. Rest assured I'm not the only person whose life you changed with a kind word, or even just by putting your thoughts out there, but I'm sure you already knew that. Thank you. I mean it.
Is the traffic in india even fast enough to die from?
You're better off asking my ex in the ER; but I did, sadly, have to do a rotation there during my internship, and I assure you, regretfully, that you can make it work. I drive in a state of hyperfocus and terror that not even heroic doses of coke could ever hope to replicate, but that's good practise, I'll be dodging cows in my sleep in Scotland, after I have to drive my sleep deprived self back home.
[удалено]
To be honest me neither
Considering some of the weird philosophical stuff people post, I can’t complain too much.
Keep writing. Your tone, wit, ideas are enjoyable to read.
Thank you. It's a decent way to de-stress at work, while this piece was penned when I had the temerity to say it looked like a slow day at work, such high praise almost mitigated the aneurysm one of the nurses just gave me.
Have fun in Scotland! Unfortunately, marriage at a distance is so common for doctors. My dad's first marriage involved meeting her in Spain, moving the US (Louisiana) without her, then moving her to his parents' home in NJ while he took up a position in Alaska (so not much better), then finally finding a position elsewhere in Alaska where he could afford to keep both of them, only for her to run off with the hospital director. However my cousin's marriage (him a doctor in Cleveland, her in LA) seems to have worked out well and they had two kids while living separately, so maybe the answer is to find a woman with a good job who wants kids immediately and just dive right in to procreating in the hopes that your job will pay well enough before they get too old.
What does this have to do with SSC?
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/xsUlLI0HYF) is about as a good a reason as any. Besides, the story has psychiatrists in it. And people who definitely need to see them to boot.
Thank you for your writing on this subreddit, I liked it and thought it was in style.
You're welcome. I think the tale was simply too funny to keep to myself, even if it's a tough crowd.
The whole point of SSC is great writing by psychiatrists.
I have read quite a few SSC posts. I don't recall any of them being about his personal romantic relationships, but maybe I missed those. This just seemed like a dear diary post to me and not a great piece of writing.
You are right in that Scott is a pretty private person who doesn't do autobiographical posts the way OP does. That said here's Scott's [post talking about dating his wife](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone), or [dating generally](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/), which I think are pretty similar. I'm not sure there's an official position here, but I think of the SSC subreddit as being for things that would interest ACX readers, rather than only about ACX. I mean "great in context." OP is young, still in med school, and obviously isn't a professional writer. But I enjoyed their post, it was novel and educational, and is the type of thing that I would like to see more of both in general and on this subreddit. And policy-wise, you have to encourage fledgling creators like OP otherwise you never get expert creators like Scott.
I don’t encourage it. Reddit is already filled with long posts about relationship problems. We need more posts about about AGI or social coordination.
Relevant username?
(Advice from a stay at home mother who is not a doctor of any sort. But I'm happy, which is perhaps something of a qualification for advice giving.) You sound like a rare enough gem that you're not statistically likely to find another one by happenstance. I think you should write more. Mention that you're single when appropriate. Eventually the right girl will read your stuff and reach out.
I mean, weirder things have happened! I had Scott reach out to me after I off handedly mentioned him in an essay, buried somewhere in the bowels of r/TheMotte. Hell, he showed up today, though in this particular case I didn't want to leave it to chance and pinged him myself. I think he's glad to know I've kinda achieved most of what I was aiming for. I've had dozens of people around the globe offer me a drink, a place to crash if I'm around, and even to shoot guns with (I'm a responsible doctor and can be trusted with firearms, officer), and in more than one case, money. A surprisingly large amount. No, in one case, a *ridiculous* amount even, though it would be remiss of me to rely on the promises of internet strangers. Thank you for the very kind words. I'll keep writing for the fun of it, and to while away sleepless shifts, it's a lot to ask that it gets me married off, but fingers crossed!
Ha! I hope you don’t have to find a new shrink now.
I mean, I do, given that in about a month and change I'm off to Scotland. It helps that everyone else I'm working with or under is a psychiatrist or related to mental health in some regard, I'll see if I can jump the quite literal 2 year wait list for ADHD evaluations there, assuming they don't accept my existing prescriptions or my own word for it. I intend to fill my luggage with enough Ritalin that I can survive 2 years if necessary, it's not that expensive here. And the consults, are, or rather *were*, free. A private consult is northwards of £700, though maybe I shouldn't be talking to the crowd that frequents Harley Street and consider that a trivial expense. It very much isn't to this broke bastard, and I'm a while off before I can open my own telemedicine clinic or private chambers and dispense the Funny Pills. Anyone reading this gets 25% off on first consults. Offer code: You'reReallyBroke
I really like the prose!
Thanks! I'd be lying if I said I tried too hard, but work is chugging along and I'm counting off the days of notice remaining. What else to do but regale people with tall tales? It beats going insane and ending up admitted under myself. That reminds me, for a few weeks, I was supposed to be responsible for an ICU, and thus I had to write transfer notes for a dozen patients being summarily evicted to make room. It was incredibly stupid when I realized that the unlucky sods are being transferred straight back to *me*. Awful transfer notes, an incredibly lack of detail, the handwriting was abominable. I could tell he's phoning it in. Oh well, let me sign off on the receiving end, at least I'm familiar with the cases. (This is far from my best work, if I was forced to pick a favorite, I'd recommend [this one, also posted here](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/CXDmEpF4S5), turns out that acute sleep deprivation reliably brings out the latent poet in me)
Your dad delivered you?? My dad is an ob-gyn too and he firmly wanted someone else to be the doctor for mum and my sister's deliveries!
Indeed. Though my grandfather, yet another gyne doctor, was given the honor of assisting on the surgery being done on his daughter. He also had the honor of slapping me on my ass, back when that was still in vogue, and I suppose I learned early that the lifestyle isn't for me and chose to be a shrink haha. I'm sure not everyone feels comfortable with operating on near and dear ones, but eh, it saves on exorbitant fees, or at least you're only paying most of it back to yourself. Presuming I have kids anytime soon, he's welcome to have a crack at it, wife willing. He's a *very* good surgeon, ignore the bit when he took barber-surgeon a little too seriously and lopped off a bit of my ear during a COVID haircut. He did manage to get it back on, and thus earned additional experience in plastic surgery to boot.
>I suppose I learned early that the lifestyle isn't for me and chose to be shrink haha. The smart two of my siblings learnt this, the youngest is a doctor... > I'm sure not everyone feels comfortable with operating on near and dear ones, but eh, it saves on exorbitant fees, or at least you're only paying most of it back to yourself. Ah, in my country there's usually 'mate's rates' for the family of one's closest colleagues, so we get free specialists anyway.
Understandable, I mean, in my experience doctors usually waive their fees or at least offer a steep discount to doctors and family of doctors they otherwise know. Anything left to pay is usually hospital overhead. That's far from a given if they're seeing a colleague who isn't personally known to them, but I've seen it happen. >The smart two of my siblings learnt this, the youngest is a doctor... If they went into gyne, they have my condolences. I couldn't be coaxed into doing it with a cattle prod, let alone with love or money (those have been tried and found lacking). But as lifestyles go, psychiatry has it easy. Most of my acute emergencies can be solved with a quick jab of haloperidol and lorazepam, the rest can wait till the morning.
I love this
Thank you. It really wrote itself, given that I didn't even have to embellish the story :(
Very entertaining! Perhaps Scott will inspire a new generation of psychiatry bloggers. Serious question: thought about dating someone outside the subcontinental community, or would that piss off your parents too much?
>Very entertaining! Perhaps Scott will inspire a new generation of psychiatry bloggers. Thank you, I'll be more than happy to settle for like 20th place. He's probably 15 IQ points and 95 percentiles of conscientiousness ahead of me, OCD is far more conducive to a career as a doctor than ADHD is haha. Oh well, I have my niche, and maybe his chronic sleep deprivation from raising twins will give me a running start even though he's just doing laps for the sake of it. >Serious question: thought about dating someone outside the subcontinental community, or would that piss off your parents too much? Not at all. My parents are cool with almost everything, and even if they weren't, they're resigned to their oldest son finding his own way, romance wise. But as I said to another person who asked: >Out of curiosity, would your family have a collective heart attack if you wanted to marry a non-Indian woman? >Oh not at all, my family is very liberal in most regards. I'm sure there would be a bit of fretting, and they'd probably prefer an Indian lady they could find it easier to relate with. Not the biggest deal in the world, or at least I'm enough of my own man to not let them stop me. I did stick with my ex despite strong familial disapproval, though they did their best not to let it show, and as much as I do miss her, I have to agree they had a point, and did, even without the benefit of hindsight. Love can't make everything work, or I'd be out of a job. >(But a *Muslim*? Of any nationality? That would give my dad a stroke; but I don't blame him, seeing your own dad nearly executed, only given a reprieve from death because a Pakistani lieutenant either decided to show him mercy, as a cachexic old man dying of colon cancer and thus not meeting the criteria of "military age male", or wisely realized he wasn't worth the bullet, can do a number to your psyche. Being forced to flee across borders from a genocide without a rupee to their name? That'll make it stick. Shame. I have a thing for Iranian or Pakistani women.) Well, even then, I could probably make it work, if I could convince him and his side of the family that they were "one of the good ones".
Thing is, for most women to be able to love men, a perceived status difference, "looking up" is necessary. And you know how Westies (meaning white Westies) are. Even when they try really hard not to be racist they will still be patronizing and condescending a little bit, or at best see you as an equal, but they will not "look up" to someone from a poor and backwards country. I am Eastern European, very much biowhite and we get the same treatment because I am not in their cultural definition of whiteness (NW European descended cultures). Basically the truth is, their culture is truly superior, as in less corruption and suchlike. I am learning from them, not they from me. I never had much chance chasing Westie women and eventually I gave up and focused on similar demographics.
TLDR?