USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
Medical students think being a cardiac surgeon means waking up, going to the OR, doing something incredible, and going home.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
And we're not correcting them.
Three different pathways to become a cardiac surgeon.
5-2. 4-3. I-6.
Programs change their pathway depending on the year. Depending on who came back from the lab.
"There's no other field like this. If you want to become a pilot, there is a path. With cardiac surgery, there are three different paths — and programs change them depending on the year."
And the work hour restrictions meant to protect residents?
"I'm convinced they hurt the residents."
Residency is supposed to be a simulation of the rest of your life.
We're not giving them that simulation.
We're giving them a highlight reel.
And then sending them out to practice.