At my school we got about seven weeks of straight up study time to prepare for boards, which just meant cutting out the fat of our daily lives (you know, no more licking your fur or calmly warming your reptilian brain in the sun). Instead we get to work on that awful hyper-kyphotic posture we’d nearly perfected during first and second year while sitting at desks all day long.

In the ebb and flow of motivational juices (i.e. dopamine, caffeine, actually caring about biochemisery, etc.), I often caught myself sitting at the desk staring off into space, not really feeling that old motivational push I had in the past.  Then, one day, as the motivational tide began to reach alarmingly low levels, along came an unexpected saving grace: an e-mail.  Not from mom with news that my “care package” would be delivered to the wrong building, but from Medical Students For Choice! I had a conference to attend soon!  Holy crap! I love these people!  They fight one of the hardest fights, with the most hot-button topics, putting personal safety at risk, and they do so with greater intellectual elegance and moral grounding than all of the anti’s combined!  And wait – I’m one of them!  (What happened next, you ask? I then had the mental fortitude to relearn the brachial plexus! Hooray!)

MSFC not only enhances my medical education in the most obvious ways (by increasing my procedural skills, cultural sensitivity, overall medical knowledge, etc.), but is, dare I say, one of the prime motivators getting me through memorizing things like lists of exotoxins and drug toxicities.  So it’s no exaggeration to say that MSFC has picked me up and made me a more knowledgeable future-doctor in ways that are totally unrelated to becoming an abortion provider.  Indeed, without MSFC, I’d be a significantly less happy student in general. So, to you MSFC, Happy Birthday, and I can’t wait to see everyone in November!

Will, MSFC’s NOVA-COM chapter