Thank You, Mick Jagger

It was a morning I hadn't expected. I sat at the computer intending to write a letter of encouragement to some older premed students I knew who were about to take the dreaded MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). Instead, the song Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones kept running through my head and something far different resulted.

So, with a nod to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, here is Ode to the Non-Traditional Medical Student -- and anyone else who could us a little smile.

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a soul with age and grace;
I was around when Bobby died, I remember, 'Lost in Space.'
And I was ‘round when a Macintosh was a coat you wore in the rain,
watched Bill Gates make history through my jaded window pane.

Pleased to meet you, can’t you guess my name?
My persistence blows your mind, I say.

I was there when Viet Nam wasn't so very far away.
where young men died as old men cried, it was only yesterday.
My kids, they play at video, while politicians play with oil;
corporate kings with virtues clean call the tune, we play the foil.

Pleased to meet you, don’t you guess my name, oh yeah;
pardon my insistence, but I ain’t takin’ no blame, oh yeah.

I saw the stare of managed care, rip the heart from life and limb;
steal doctors from the public trust, scare patients out of their skin.
Ethics dim, as profits skim the poor from sight and mind;
Uncle Ted says we’d all be dead it if weren't for those who're kind.

Let me please introduce myself, I’m a soul with age and grace,
a lifetime of experience, sometimes makes me hard to take.

Just when you thought I’d be satisfied, to be mindful of my “place”;
keep silent while security drops a shroud over my face.
Let the years become a barrier and time a cheap façade,
pretend I’ve done it all, oh yeah,‘til I’m covered up with sod.

Forget all the limits cuz
I’m here to stay (woo, woo, woo, woo);
Tell that resistance, just get outta my way
(woo, woo, woo, woo).

So if we chance to meet, show a little courtesy;
show a little grace and some decency,
‘cause someday, you’ll be me.

Tell me baby,
don’t you guess my name
(woo, woo, woo, woo)?
Call me doctor,
yeah, I'm goin' all the way.
(woo, woo, woo, woo)."


(Inspired by Sympathy for the Devil by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards - no copyright infringement intended)

(Image by alvarezperea via Flickr)