My Life Goals

Ben Ferguson -- Okay, a few others made lists of their own. Given the relative proximity to the start of the new year, I may as well join in the fun:

1. Be happy. No bones about it. (My fiancee would throw in the requirement here that I’m able, at least some of the time, to have Saturday morning pancakes with my kids.) While everyone has to strike a balance somehow between work and family, I find myself happiest when I am stressed out and challenged in my work. This ought to be interesting...

2. Work as long as I physically can. My great-grandfather was a professor of music at the University of Minnesota (there’s a building bearing his name, in fact) until he was forced to retire at the age of 68 because that’s how public institutions used to work. What did he do? He crossed the river, got a job at the private school across town, and finished what he started. At 87 he published his final book, and when he died at the age of 102, he was still chugging along. My great uncle, a prominent general surgeon for decades, worked, taught, and conducted research pretty much until he was unable, bowing only to the onset of Alzheimer’s. My dad, also a surgeon, is now nearing 60 and is very much in his prime as a professor and researcher.

3. Contribute something important. I’m not too interested in pursuing a private practice, preferring instead the life of academia and its inherent pursuit of knowledge. People often refer to the “ivory tower” of academia as being this land of seclusion from reality, but I prefer to see it from the opposite angle in that academia largely generates that reality (in terms of new and ground-breaking treatments, standards of care, etc.) within which those who practice in private or community settings operate. I have met many wonderfully talented physicians in private practice over the years, but if I were to do it, I fear I’d feel too much like a robot, merely an agent of health care delivery rather than a developer of the care itself, running in place instead of moving forward, following the recommendations from research findings as opposed to helping to actually generate them. In that regard, I suppose there is a selfish aspect to this desire. Still, I’d much prefer to be personally invested in research and working toward something than, broadly-speaking, doing the same thing, day in and day out, without accomplishing much for the future. I recently finished reading a book that chronicled the life of Judah Folkman, an ingenious and well-respected physician and cancer researcher for decades who passed away just this week, and his father used to advise him to “be a credit to your people.” Well, my people are doctors, scientists, and patients, and to go through life as a physician-scientist without having contributed much to them or to future generations would seem wasteful to me.

4. Write a book. Or several.

Those are the big ones. I should probably also include things like “graduate,” “get into residency,” “don’t die during residency,” “get enough sleep during residency,” “stay healthy,” “avoid divorce,” and so forth, but I think those are held by pretty much everyone.