Why Medical School is Awesome (Opening Black Boxes)

We live in a world of black boxes. Most of us go through the day fairly oblivious to why things are the way they are. We know that a spark ignites a mist of gasoline to power our car. But can we explain the process of the internal combustion engine much further than that? I know that I can't.

The same is true for our bodies. Which isn't to say that the average person is completely ignorant of biomechanical processes, I've known since high school biology that when one puts their hand on a hot stove a reflex arc is triggered that causes you to quickly remove your hand before you are even consciously "aware" of it. But with that level of knowledge, you sometimes don't even know what you don't know.

But one of the best aspects of medical school is that you are constantly confronted with aspects of medicine that most of the world views as a black box. For instance, the subject matter for today was the anatomical basis for pain. To me, pain has always been more of an idea than something concrete. Pain is what happens when you try to open a package with a sharp knife and it slips and cuts into your finger. But in medical school you get the opportunity to dive deeper.

You can understand the basis for why you rub your arm after bumping it on the table. You can understand why people with spinal cord damage have very little return of functionality below the damage, but even better you have a whole new set of deeper questions you can explore.

Somewhere within the difficulty of medical school are the things that keep us coming back, things like opening up black boxes.