Doctors Without Borders

Ok, so when I was in college and medical school, long years ago in the age of knights and castles and fair ladies and pathology pot cases and microscopes that had real slides with real stains, we used to hang out to study. We went to Krystal, because Krystal was open any hour of any day or night, including holidays in those days if memory serves. Krystals were cheap ("Take home a sackful", remember?), good and consistent. We went to Dunkin Donuts, because, oh my God, it's donuts, for crying out loud. Yeah, they had barley soup too, and pretty good large coffees to keep you going as you studied for that micro test that you wanted to blow out of the water, but OH MY GOD it was the donuts, right? Am I right? We bellied up to the counter or commandeered a group of tables and set up base camp, established radio connections, and went at it for hours on end. We would order another something just when the fetid breath of the night shift manager was felt hot and heavy on the back of our necks. Spend a buck, get another hour or two. Just like a budget parking meter for starving students.

Later on, many years later on, we have all turned to other places to hang out and study and talk and listen to music and do other things. We do this as teenagers, we do this as college students and medical students and residents and we even do it as middle aged guys like me who have long since forgotten where they stashed the cap and gown and have been at this game for longer than they want to admit. We go places that are not our own places to hang out. To have an experience. To just be in another space. It's all good. It's a fun thing to do, and it can even inspire creativity and help you relax and pump you up if you need that (quad espresso, oh geez, please, yes, hit me again, Mr. Barista). We have gone from spreading out our piles of papers and books and charts and lab reports and projects to lugging our huge, seven pound HPs to flipping out our cool BlackBooks (did you have one of those, yeah, did you? Sweet) to now casually reaching over, bending at the waist and taking out our 1.5 pound iPad, with ONE HAND, and casually setting up the DODOcase so that the angle is just right for the person at the next table to see how cool we are without seeing our precious data (which includes our all-important Twitter stream and Facebook homepage). We might, we just MIGHT, even venture into one of these places one day with (gasp!) just an iPhone 4 and a set of Bose earphones (the newest ones, of course, with the little plastic inserts so that everyone KNOWS they are the newest ones) and proceed to run the government of Sweden via Go to Meeting over WiFi. Awe-some.

Well, boys and girls, Borders has been one of those places of late where you could watch this ongoing, ever-changing dance. So has Starbucks and maybe even Barnes and Noble. Maybe even Dunkin Donuts still, if you're really stretched. But, alas, Borders is on its last legs. It is turning the page on its final chapter, closing out another installment in a miniseries of...well, you know. It is CLOSING. Oh, geez. All that congregational space. All that coffee and those little pastries. it's like closing down and de-sanctifying a church, for God's sake. Medical students, college students, DOCTORS without BORDERS? Where will we congregate? Where will we talk? Where will we plan and scheme and brainstorm? Where will we listen to bad music on Friday nights (well, he's a friend and he's just getting started-cut him some slack, OK?)

The sad fact of it is, my friends, is that we have met the enemy and he is us. We have gradually, slowly and surely stopped sharing projects, taking them physically off the tables and putting them into Microsoft Project or other software systems. We have left the books on the shelves opting to download them to e-readers or gulp them audibly. We have quit talking to each other, with every person you see around those shrinking tables attached to a device by two tiny little cords running into their ears, stimulating one part of their cortex but completely shutting down another. We have stopped interacting with each other in real time the way we used to at Krystal at three AM. It's sad, but it's true. Borders is but a casualty of this war on real reality. Virtual reality, virtual networks, virtual friends, virtual mentors. They have virtually taken over our social spheres.

I will miss those gritty, scary, seat-of-my-pants times. I really will.

How about you?