But the real people are what made the whole thing real for me. Plus, working a soup kitchen like in my first service may not seem to have much to do with being a doctor, but even that gives you a sense of compassion. You don't forget the hollow, distant look of those vets from the South Asian War, or the Second U.S. Civil War, or even the survivors of the San Francisco blast. Especially not the ones that still can't get jobs, the way they still twitch and get the shakes at times. I really think we should do more to help them.
Technology sure does work both ways.
It's hard to believe the sonicator we used in organic and inorganic labs functions on the same principle as those mines. But the service does make a difference. It's really the people element of your education. And doing three services really beats it into you. I mean, I've spent a lot of hours in front of screens and holo projectors looking at images of organs, moving organelles in different cell growth simulations, examining cofactor interactions in various protein systems.