Doctoral Recognition

 I find myself well into one of many relatively fruitless study days. What marks this day as more unusual is that I had a long dream that involved fairly stressful parts, and I unfortunately remember those portions well. The setting was my own wedding, though more in the backstage conversing with family and friends that you rarely see rather than any focus on, say, finding happiness in creating a lasting bond with a significant other. It involved my oldest brother once again denying that I am a doctor, and my sputtering a flabbergasted response about his jealousy. Maybe it was because of that recent WSJ article in which the author said that Dr. Jill Biden should drop the doctor title when she takes up her role as First Lady. With the knowledge of how much work goes into a doctoral degree, it is difficult to fathom such a horrific "take" on such a thing. In any case, this denial and my inability to articulate a response in the moment of the dream, left me feeling, well, I am not sure of the word. Disturbed? Taken aback? Incredulous?

To be clear, I have previously been the first to poke fun at both my medical doctoral ambitions, and then at such an achievement once I reached it. But just as with racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, conspiracy theories, and a myriad of other such issues in our society, the jokes can only be made when everyone has an established understanding of a baseline reality. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with some of these things, particularly in the LGBTQ community, but continuing to learn is part of staying relevant.

I am the first doctor of my family, and the second of my siblings to receive a bachelor's degree. The closest match was my oldest brother, who majored in economics and minored in both philosophy and music. My mother has a marketing degree and my dad has told me that his education as a CPA is equivalent to a masters. My mother has had the appropriate response for such an achievement on my part, and in anticipation of it. The focus was on me at Christmas last year for what was to come, and then we all went for drinks when the diploma finally arrived. Immense pride. But every other person in the family seems to just not understand. When I think of the smartest people in the world, I have always thought of doctors. But this is reality, and I am likely not alone in facing such a lack of recognition in this age of conspiracies, when my clinical knowledge is, for the first time, pretty relevant in daily life.

I am a middle child, so I know what it is like for achievements to go unnoticed. That does not bother me so much. What bothers me is when my achievements are specifically denied. Though I recognize that this comes from a place of insecure jealousy, it obviously still manages to bother me to the point that it gives me stress dreams.

Hopefully writing it out helps me to get it out of my head and subconscious, and onto this blog. After all, I have future lives to save. On that topic, I ran across a scene from a Marvel movie the other day in which Spider-Man was first being introduced into the MCU, and he said one of the more inspiring things. "When you can do the things that I can do, and the bad things happen, they happen because of you." So I have to try to punch my brain into remembering that whatever limits, whatever shortcomings I have had with studying thus far, I need to do better because I can be the change if I apply myself.