Proud

I am sitting in the Oklahoma City Civic Center.  Today my son Jeff graduates from Medical School.  It is a great accomplishment.  It is amplified because of the road he has had to travel to get here.  To get into the program he took the MCAT 4 times.  While he did not date much through high school - by not much I can count on one hand the number of dates he had in high school, and on one finger the girl he dated in college.  During medical school he met and fell in love with one of his high school classmates who was a year ahead in med school.  Last June they were married.

During this fourth year Jeff spent 16 weeks doing away rotations.  He did that because he is committed to being married.  He wants to be an orthopedic surgeon.  Usually that requires applications to 30 residency programs.  Jeff applied to 3.  Because his wife had already been accepted into an anesthesiology residency in Pittsburgh, and he wanted to stay with her.  This was against the counsel of most of the medical community, and the practice of some of his fellow students.  They are spending the next 3 – 4 years separated from their wives.  Jeff chose not to do that.  So this next year he will be doing research at the hospital where he hopes to be accepted into the orthopedic program next year.  This is essentially a volunteer position.

I am proud of the choices he has made.  He is standing firm on his conviction that he has to honor his marriage.  That conviction came from time in the Word.  The foundation for the conviction was laid long before he had to act on those beliefs.