It's been a long, long day, I got a lot to say. It feels like I'm carrying a two-ton weight, I go see a friend. Hello, I'm Monsignor Patrick Winslow. And I am Father Matthew Cout. And we are speaking from the Rooftop. A podcast brought to you by 10 Books, in which we invite you to join our conversation out here in the open air. Where we look out upon the world around us from the rooftop of the church and share with you what we see. Well, hello. Greetings, how are you? I'm doing well, how about you? Fantastic, fantastic. We're just coming to the end of the semester and so things are finally sliding down. And as per usual, I feel like I'm face-planning across the finish line. You know, over the years you run into these liturgical purists who refuse to celebrate anything named Christmas during Advent. And I have a theory. I have a theory that in the western context, that truly a lot of the Christmas lights and trees and wreaths are really Advent. Because they are how we prepare for Christmas. But the culture doesn't use different terms. They don't make a distinction between Advent and Christmas, right? They know that Christmas Day has yet to come. And then this is how we prepare for. So hearing the Christmas music, seeing the Christmas lights, to me is not all, it is not a violation of the spirit of Advent. I see it as part and parcel in the American context. This is our cultural language of Advent. And then you put the baby in the creche at Easter. Your thoughts? I would agree with you. And I think that you beginning of Christmas music in October is a sound practice. It's incarnational. It's the incarnation is part of everything. I think Dickon said, right, from Scrooge, we are one of those ghosts of Christmas past or present that we celebrate his birth 365 days a year. The question becomes then, I suppose, if that's what we do during Advent now, what do we do during Christmas? Good questions. So since Christmas is upon us, hard to know if this is going to hit, this publication is going to hit right before or right after Christmas. I don't know. Right before. But either way, Christmas is upon us. So I would say first, as a practical matter, I always give advice, as I mentioned before, I think I mentioned at time, Easter time, that when you're getting together with family and friends that you haven't gotten together with throughout the year, avoid controversy. So that means to say, it is not the right time and place to get into a contentious battle regarding religion or a contentious battle regarding politics. A contentious battle, recalling how somebody owes you money. You just got to let it go. You say that because you owe me money. You can bring it up before or after Christmas. Well, why? Why ruin Christmas Day? I mean, I understand. I can hear nearsayers already. I can practically hear them now. Well, why wouldn't you talk? Of course you should talk about a religion. It's just not the time for it to go south. You don't want people storming out of your house because they are in error on something or maybe you're in error on something and they're right. But either way, this is not the moment. For example, don't we all feel like there's something wrong when the Eastern and the Latin Catholics get into priests. Eastern and Latin Catholic priests get into fistfights on the eve of the nativity in Bethlehem over some silly rule of one thing or another. It's almost a ritual over there. But everyone kind of looks at it and says, you know what, really, of all the days, could you just not be contentious for one day? Now, I'm not trying to sacrifice true religion. I'm not trying to sacrifice doctrine. I'm not trying to sacrifice opportunities for evangelization and things of that nature. But don't let it get contentious. Please write to the Diocese of Charlotte. Karen Bishop-Cugus. But seriously, I mean, honestly, I mean, I remember reading the means to be humble by Mother Teresa, she spoke to her community. You know, and one of her points was, it was about arguments. It was given in arguments at some point, given. Meaning, I don't think she means endorse error or, you know, embrace a lie. But she means just at some point, don't go south with it. Yield and turn the channel. Move on. It's just not worth a blood sport. It's just, it's always the case that we, almost always the case that when we get into a conversation, that we're not attempting to see something with someone else and having them help us see something. As we try to do in these little cloutiers. It's almost like a sport sometimes. You're trying to win and spike the ball. And we get into their camp and what win can I get? And then you go tell your friends, you should have heard what I said. Yeah, yeah. And I stormed out of the house or, you know, they went away. I told him, yeah. See, that's perfect for the colorect. It is. Well, colorects love it. That must be like a, yeah. But I've, the older I am, the less I am interested in it to be honest with you. I just, I'm not that interested in it. Mainly because I don't see any fruit that comes from it. I've got 30 years of no fruit coming from kind of those kinds of conversations.  Exactly. Yeah. And you got to deal with it. It's like, I'll be aftermath. You might feel justified that you won something, but. You feel noble. Yeah. It's true. So, and so beyond the preparatory familial friendship events that we have, what would be your recommendation relative to, because people typically, as with anything, when you are looking forward to something and that something comes. So much of it is dependent upon the kind of expectations you placed on it. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I ran across something very interesting the other day that I had, I did not know. That sounded pretty haughty, didn't it? I actually ran across something that I did not know. I'm used to that with you actually. That didn't sound haughty.  I'm learning something every day. That's all right. This was really interesting to me. It was a description of the etymology of hope. It was a Germanic word, and it has the same root as the word hop. It's like an Easter Bunny, or is it? Well, yeah. So, or like in the little grain. In Greek and Latin, of course, it has to, it refers to the particular goddesses, elpus and spes that give you gifts, but they're not always something you're looking forward to. And so the Greeks ended up with this eiu elpus, the good gift that might actually come, that becomes this thing about hope, because your expectation is something's coming to you, but we're not sure what's actually coming. So in the old days, we had this at Christmas because you didn't know what you were getting. And so you might get a lump of coal, quote, unquote, or you might get something that you actually wanted. Now I don't think any kid gets coal, right, because they would probably call up trial protective services. Well, that's right, exactly. That being said, it could be one or the other. And my mother actually did give me coal once on the, prior to Christmas. Did you deserve it? Well, it was interesting. We had in our stockings, you know, sometimes, you know, we check your stocking, because you know, there might be like a little, a pre-gift. A pre-gift. Yeah. And so my sister got a bunch of candy or something, and I went to mine and I got a lump of coal. It just happened to look like a charcoal briquette. And it said in there, stop trying to act like an adult and leave your mother alone in the kitchen. Santa. Ah, interesting. I know you could explain the coal. So, but that, at least it had embedded into it a sort of merit. Right. Now it's an expectation. But the reason I bring that up about hope that I find fascinating is that it's like that sort of excitement. So when you see, for example, an animal, if you think, you're going to take the animal, the animal thinks that you're taking them for a walk. They see their leash or you have some mannerism, right? They start jumping up and hopping. That jumping is a manifestation that there's a good coming to you. And we all have that with Christmas. We get excited again. Right. We get excited about the thought that good things are going to come to us in this season. And because sometimes we're not expecting the right good things or expect them in a particular way, post-partum Christmas syndrome can set in. As a priest early on, I remember getting flurries of phone calls from people that needed to talk after Christmas. And I started to piece it together. It's like, whoa. First, people getting together that they normally don't get together with. Lots of history, some charged personas. And then you had the expectations. And you're hitting on that ladder part, the expectation. This is a big issue for couples getting married. And this is one of the councils I give them. And really my final session and talking with them when I do marriage preparation is I explain, look, you've done all your preparations now. And so when the time comes, whether it's Thursday or Friday, presuming the wedding's on Saturday, you need to let go. And you also need to let go of your expectations of other people's behavior because you can't control them. And in your mind, you've tried to put together an event that you want to go a certain way, but you are not actually directing the characters on that stage. You can't. So you will almost always be disappointed about what actually happens because in your mind, nobody is going to play the role that you want them to play, but you've worked so hard to create a moment where they're supposed to fulfill the script that you have in your mind. Then they're never going to. They never have in the past. Why would they do it in this day? In fact, they might see it as an opportunity. Look, this circumstance has served up an opportunity for me to be just more of myself, not less, or certainly not scripted. So you've got to let go of it and just enjoy the moment and laugh. That's a good way to put it. As people come to your home for Christmas, you hand out the scripts. Exactly. And they're not reading their lines. That's right. Nope. You've got to let them read themselves. The set isn't right. Well, here's a good way. Maybe we can put it into the minds of the faithful about a paradigm for them to walk into Christmas with. Can you imagine if the script was laid out in a certain way at the first Christmas? I'm sure things did not work out exactly according to this plan. Exactly. Having to go to Bethlehem. I mean, have you ever been to the Holy Land? It's not a small journey on foot. It's a reasonable journey in a car, not on foot. And yet, because it wasn't part of the plan, it began...  At some point, Joseph and our Lady must have said, ah, he has to be born in Bethlehem. This makes sense. Right. Right. And the excitement, the genuine hopping or the movement up to realize that God is doing something here, that what seems like a ridiculous secular injunction and command to register, now I see why all of that providence, or even just the fact that everyone's so familiar with the beautiful crash scenes that we create in the stable. Imagine if that hadn't happened. Imagine all that sort of romance of the Savior not being welcomed into a particular hostel or hotel. The scene would look a little bit different in a hotel. And yet, that ability that St. Joseph had to not sort of become encumbered by his own expectations. But the correcting of that expectation, or the realigning of it when you're met in Bethlehem, of not having a place for your wife who's in labor. Yeah. And instead of bringing his hands, he comes up with something. You surrender. Yeah.  You adapt. And in many ways, that, as you are rightly pointing out, is more the spirit of Christmas than giving when everyone they're scripted and they behave thusly. How do I take care of the Christ, John? Yeah. Yeah. And how do I respond to divine providence in these circumstances and be malleable to divine providence and to take it with a sense of joy and surrender? You know, I think that in a nutshell, we're telling people if they haven't already celebrated Christmas, or even if they're in the wake of it, that we're telling them to really, you can work for a moment of having family and friends to celebrate this amazing feast of the incarnation of God. But you also, especially in the spirit of the Nativity in Christmas, have to be malleable about what actually will unfold. Because, first of all, that is really a true experience of Bethlehem. But second of all, is a practical matter. No one's going to show up and say, give me my script, I'm going to play it perfectly. It's not going to happen. And in some sense, it's the opposite. Because we got used to having expectations of receiving certain things as kids, we still have them as adults. Right. And we're sort of expecting to receive the Hallmark Christmas. Right. Or the Currier in Ives. That's my father. But you know the great thing about my father, regardless of what actually happens in front of him, in his mind, it's a Hallmark Christmas. I love it. It's a delusion. He wears the sweaters. It's a delusion, yeah. Like one time we had Thanksgiving, and the turkey was bad. I mean, it was bad. It wasn't like poorly done. It was sour. It was bad meat. So clearly something happened. We later found out that something happened at the Sam's Club where these things had defrosted when they shouldn't have. And we were not the only ones. But it looked amazing. But it didn't taste proper. It was not. He was going to believe that it was. Oh, denial. Denial. I mean, it took, I think it was post Thanksgiving. But nobody was eating it. And he was willing to smother it with anything to make it work. But yeah, we had to let reality burst through the Hallmark Thanksgiving. But no. So he's got wonderful Hollywood eyes where he can just produce something through his vision in spite of what's in front of him. That works. Hey, if you're delusional like my father and you can put on those happy glasses, you go right ahead. But in reality, most of us are actually kind of seeing things as they are. And you have to you have to roll with it. Yeah. And you got to flip the paradigm, right? I mean, if when you were a child and you had the expectation of receiving, you really do have to flip the paradigm and say, I am interested in offering. I really want to create. You know, I talk a lot about creating worlds for people. Right. Which doesn't mean giving them a script. It means giving them a setting in which they can thrive and live and flourish. And ideally the one that brings out the best helps them deal with the worst. So having an expectation of creating something beautiful for the baby Jesus, but then the people that are in your life, it sounds sort of trite, but it's not. It's a great thing. You know, that's one of those sayings in the scriptures where it says it is better for him to give than to receive. And what's interesting about that phrase, it's not in the Gospels. It's quoted from the lips of our Lord, but you don't find it in the Gospels, which tells you how many sayings were out there that didn't find their way into the actual Gospels. But it's just true. It's true. And so if there's any small piece of advice, it's like have the posture of St. Joseph in that sense, looking to serve the child. Because I was thinking to myself, too, imagine if you've been waiting to see this child for a long time and you have even an inkling of what is actually going on as Joseph and our Lady would have had more than an inkling about what's the reality here. Finally, the child comes itself in a miraculous way.  So imagine someone comes to your door at Christmas time that you did not invite. That's right. Exactly. I mean, and many people say, you know, how do they say, keep the reason for the season? Sure, sure. Those little expressions. You know, they're reminding us of obviously the reason for the feast. But oftentimes, the circumstances that were dedicating our efforts or whether it's giving a gift or whether it's preparing the food or creating the atmosphere in the setting and doing all these things. We are very focused on those in particular. We can lose sight, you know, as we say, lose the forest for the trees. We're caught into the trees. We can't see the whole big picture. But one of the ways in which we can bring that bigger picture into the weeds of things is when we encounter these frictions. Yes. And say, now I can give, right? Now, instead of being disappointed and tearful and wounded, now I can give because you're going to find plenty of opportunities in the frictions of those circumstances to take that reason for the season, to take the real meaning and apply it. And then you're truly manifesting the gift of the nativity interpersonally and in the context of your family and your friends. Yeah. And then you do receive. And you do receive. It is truly the spirit of Christmas. It truly... And one of the things I've learned over years with respect to the whole expectation game is no gift changes anyone's life. That's right. You know, we all want to give that gift that it's just got to alter everything.  I'd like you to try, though.  But I've realized the only gift that really changes your life... Don't say your presence. ...is me. Here we go. And it's been consistent. Oh, it changes my life considerably. That's for sure. Oh, speaking of which, you know, I was thinking in terms of expectations, you know, and so on, some of the conversations I've had with people, you know, they... I think they're still a little confused on what the nature of the podcast is here. Because oftentimes, you know, people might make a comment. The assumption is that we're trying to be expressly catechetical or, you know, expressly theological. Or philosophical. Or philosophical. We got plenty of talks out there. Well, that's it. We do this all the time.  We do catechetical work. We do scripture study work. We obviously are involved. But the thing that we're doing here that's different is we're really sharing our friendship with other people to be a part of it. And what I like to think, you know, is kind of our brand, if you will, what we're doing is I would hope that we're minimal, minimally modeling a substantive friendship such that people could see the types of things that we actually do talk about. Because quite honestly, we're different than when we first met, and hopefully in the better ways, except for our bodies. But apart from those. It's tough being 25. It is tough. I mean, when we met when we were 18, now we're 25. But you know, but the truth is the substance and the real matter of it all, the heart of the matter, just grows. And it's built on things that are truly substantial, built on things that are eternal. And yeah, we're here, right? You know, we live in this world in tents, so to speak. We're strangers and so-and-ers, and we're making our way. But the relationships, even as we recall in feudal rites, they don't unravel with death. That's right. And so what we're doing with our friendship, and hopefully with our other friendships, and with our family members, and so on, is we're investing in something that's eternal. And we're actually, I think, hopefully, modeling for people, not in a contrived way, but just, I guess, in a bit of a sort of opening the doors kind of way for the people in, or turning on the microphone, so to speak. That this is what friends talk about. This is true stuff. It's a blend of real life. It's a blend of personality. It's a blend of religion. It's a blend of philosophy. And these, this stuff is, this is the stuff of life. You know, we don't just do catechetics and say, I know this and I can pass the exam. Or I can do scripture study and I can pass that interpretation. Or it's not that. If this stuff doesn't hit the road in the fibers of who you are, then what is the point of it? Right, right. No, absolutely. I think that what always fascinates me about these conversations, maybe fascinates too big of a word, but what I sort of grin about is that at some point we just hit record. We were talking for half hour before we hit record. Right, exactly. Because it's not going to change. We're just going to speak about these things, but it's not from no particular position. It's from that position of the rooftop, where you're actually trying to get above the cotidianum, the humdrum of the day. But you take those things up top and you look at them through the eyes of faith and what people are going through, what we're going through, et cetera. I heard something really beautifully their day relative to that. And this is about, I mean, for St. Thomas, all love is a kind of friendship. And so some of those kinds of friendship have to do with the propagation, education of children we call marriage. There's a different kind of friendship and different kind of love. But this was a really beautiful statement that talks about when friends get old and when they've got in their past all sorts of history and commonalities, experiences, and even wounds. And the line was this. This elderly gentleman said that when my wife's leg brushes up against my leg, it no longer makes me emotionally excited. It doesn't thrill me. It doesn't fill me with the kind of, I can't believe she's near me. He said, but when her leg hurts, so does mine. And I thought that was really brilliant. That you do lose some of that, what couples experience is they lose that sort of effervescence of a newly found love. But in any friendship, this happens too.  It's kind of your home. You go beyond the novelty in the first layer. So what's I'm going to offer you in terms of an exciting. The kickbacks. Yeah, the kickbacks. And yet there's such a, and this kind of gets more to an era still in understanding a friendship there, that someone else is sort of part of my own soul. Almost like you're one person. And all of our deep friendships have that sense about them. And yet, because we're such distinct minds, what's been helpful for us over the years and for other friends as well that we have is to be able to try to stop and put those minds together and say, okay, what do you see? Because what I see helps what you see. What you see helps what I see to come to a genuine concord of the thing we're gazing at. So in a nutshell, you talk a good game, but when my leg hurts, you laugh. That's true. You have a lot of work to do. I said, that's for married couples. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Nope. That's not what good friends do.  Well, I generally cry. Well, good. All right, well, let's see. Before we go, I know. Before we go. Before we go. I have to say that living in North Carolina, it's not cold enough to have a fire every single day, especially when around Christmas. Night times are not bad. Especially on Christmas time. Sure. However, this year. You do the TV one, the TV fire? No, the TV fire. The YouTube loop? You should probably know this. So we just had a Christmas party at the seminary. And it's the great event of the year. And so many people come. It's incredible. All of our faculty and our formators. It's really old world style. It is. And it's gorgeous. Everything's laid out and decked out so beautifully. And we put on a big meal and song vespers and sing a lot. And both in terms of song songs, but also fun songs. We have a Christmas play in Latin. It's just great. So I walk, I'm cooking all the food. And we've got 70s people there. And I walk out of the kitchen when a couple of the priests and the sisters and other people helping me with the preparations. And I walk into the great room and it's a perfect scene. Fireplace there, roaring. Because now it's cold this year. Music, roaring fire. And music is going. There's a piano. There's a Christmas tree. There's garlands. And people are having a cocktail or something or a glass of wine. And just happy. And I'm thinking, huh, there's not as many people as I thought there were. So I go to the next room, which is what we call the man cave. And in there. It's for the seminarians. It's their hangout. In there, there's another fireplace going on the T.D. As if that's the real thing. And who is sitting there holding court with about a dozen seminarians? But dear Father Winslow, choosing the artificial over the real. No, those boys were real. It was great. We were in the warmth of the fire. Just not the fire. I had to step away from them.  I had to step away from the TV. I was burning up. Now, you know what? It's really nice about those guys. It's truly a joy is that in our worlds, oftentimes, people have either things they want to tell us or they want to get an opinion or a thought or oftentimes permissions about X, Y, or Z. With these guys, they're just relaxed. And there's nothing. There's no agenda. No. And it's really delightful. This would have laughed, really. They would have laughed.  There's lots of agendas and subterfuge going on in these parties. And then someone steps out and starts talking to the wait staff. Because it's like, it's a natural conversation without any agenda. And it's like, oh, this is refreshing. That's true. Well, that's like it wasn't with those guys, you know. Oh, it is. Just step away and just have a...  And so they don't need you to be their authority because they have one above them. So we talk about silly things.  It works. It totally works. All right. That's great. So, all right, my... So real fireplaces, not electric. Oh, that's right. And get rid of the gas for having six people walks in there. What about trees? We've already talked about that. That's an absolute... That's true. That's true. Okay. So on my end, I would say, with respect to giving gifts, whether it's too late or not, go for my advice is go for something that's thoughtful. I found that thoughtful gifts are more meaningful and have a greater impact. You know, when you think about a person, not just like what do they need, right? Because then the gift giving comes a chore. I've got to find out what they need and everyone's searching for what they need. Hardly any of us need anything. Oh, that's true. Or what they want. But think about the person. And then think about the person. And if you're going to give them a gift, think about what matches that person. Like one year, for example, my brother-in-law, Tofer, and my sister, Deborah. Oh, wait. Or maybe it was Mary and her husband, Mark. I can't remember which one did it. But maybe it was my sister Mary. They found a place to make my father a lord of Scotland because they give you the rights to like a square inch of like a square inch or a square foot of property into this estate where the title Lord is applied to you. So they give you this.  But it was perfect for him. And that perfect for him because we found out that year that his bloodline tracks into the royal family of England to the Plantagenes. Oh, here we go. So he was hammered up all the time how he was royalty. So it was just like a perfect, thoughtful, fun, novel kind of thing. No, that's good advice. But it was just thoughtful. Like it was tailored. And that sort of stuff goes a long way and it doesn't have to be expensive. It's just tailored. I like them to be both for me, please. So could you please, if we're anticipating, I probably won't see you at Christmas, Father. So you can go ahead and give me your thoughtful gift today. Oh, I just did. I gave you all my thoughts. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. God bless you. Bye now. Thanks for listening to this episode of From the Rooftop. For updates about new episodes, special guests, and exclusive deals for From the Rooftop listeners, sign up at rooftoppodcast.com. And remember, for more great ways to deepen your faith, check out all the spiritual resources available at 10books.com. And we'll see you again next time. From the Rooftop.


Medical school is expensive, no surprise there, but exactly how expensive does it get? In today's episode, I'm going to break down exactly how much my entire medical school education cost all the way from my college days trying to get into medical school to know where I am just three months away about to graduate from residency. And what I mean, I'm going to break down everything I mean everything all the way from those big expenses like tuitions and living costs to those small things such as supplies and resources. And we'll get into essentially exactly how much debt I am after going through the entire process and compare that to the typical medical student who also goes through the same journey. And at the very end, I'm going to be sharing some things that I wish I would have done differently. So make sure you stay till then. But really quickly, if you're new here, welcome. My name is Lakshman, internal medicine physician who's just now three months away from graduating residency. And here on the MD journey, I make content to help people like you succeed on your medical journey, but doing it with less stress. So if you're new here and you're listening to the YouTube channel or the podcast, make sure you hit that subscribe button. If you want, definitely check out all the free resources that have for you down below in the description. But let's get into breaking down exactly how much it cost me to become a doctor here in the US. Let's start with my college tuition. Now I went to college between the years of 2011 to 2014. So these numbers from back then, I also got my degree in three years to go ahead and save myself an extra year of tuition. So my overall cost through my tuition each year was $9,800. So multiply that by three ends up being about $29,400, not counting all those fees in extra taxes. Now, because I was a first generation college student in my family, both myself and my parents are very motivated to apply to as many scholarships as possible for myself. And thankfully, we're able to get a good amount. So I think out of that entire $29,000, probably paid of just about $7,500 to $10,000 over the span of three years. And thankfully, during college, I made a decision to live at home and drive the extra 30 to 40 minutes each day. It's really the only thing I was paying for was books and just the cost of transportation.  And then next we have to transition into actually applying to medical school. First, we have to talk about taking that dreaded MCAT, which for me was about a memory about $300 to actually take the test and then an extra $300 and just buying books and resources that I used to study for it. Next, we have to talk about the cost of actually applying to the schools. Now I chose the lazy route because I'm from the state of Texas. So basically said, I'm just going to do one application, the state of Texas decided to have their own. And so for me, the entire cost of all the schools at that time, they're about nine to 10 and the state was about $300. But most students choose to actually end up applying through all the schools or at least nationwide through the AMC website. And that costs usually about $70 initially plus $40 for each schools. So that typical cost for another student can be much higher anywhere from $500 to $770. Now that we have college out of the way, now we have to transition into the actual cost of medical school. Now, unfortunately, I didn't have medical school really close to where my family was living. So I did have to make the decision to move to another nearby school in the same state. And so I went to medical school at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas with a cost of tuition at that time was about $21,000. Now, I think it's about 25 multiplied by four years, 84,000. Now I also made a decision to apply for scholarships, but it is a lot harder in medical school to get a significant amount of money to pay off that. And so I think maybe a total I got about 6 to 7,000, which I was definitely thankful for, but still brought the total cost of tuition of medical school to about 78,000. And because living at home was no longer an option, this was the first four years of my life where I actually lived by myself. So I got one bedroom apartment that was subsidized by the school itself and I lived there all four years. And I think with the cost of rent, which is about 990 plus internet utilities, basically trashed the cost each month was about $1110. And so total over four years because I pretty much paid entirety was about $53,280. That just makes me sad. We'll come back to the living costs at the very end of the episode to talk about a few things that would have done differently there, but in terms of things I think I did actually well were things such as my food costs, which were about $250 to $300 on a monthly basis, typically spending about anywhere from $30 to $50 in a grocery trip, maybe eating out once. And at that time with my fiance, we make up for dinner once or twice a month. And so the total cost about a year was about $3,000 multiplied by four, about $12,000, which is not the worst for somebody who is still on a budget. Next up we'll talk about transportation. Now thankfully I lived very close to school, maybe about one to two miles away and I had a car of my own, which is fully paid off. And really the main thing I was paying for were things like just gas and maintenance. The car had about 110,000 miles on it by the time I was in medical school and I was driving back and forth between another city about three hours away to see my now wife or at that time fiance since the total cost of transportation over the span of four years, including car repairs, gas, etc., about $5,000. Now so far we only covered the cost of actually getting into medical school and just like living nearby it and like transporting back and forth. But the actual cost of being in medicine is a lot more. Simple things such as this extra medical cost such as buying a set of scope. I had to buy a set of scope twice because I lost it about halfway through about $150 each time, so about $300 total. Things like laptops, you know, I've made a whole video about this on YouTube. I'll link it down below if you guys are interested on some of the best laptops and the decisions you should consider when buying a laptop in medical school. But I made the wrong mistake the first two years of trying to buy as cheap as possible and then finding that they would break really easily which one literally just cracked in half or just like not be able to do the functional task that you need it. So I bought three laptops in medical school. The first one is about $500. The second one also about $500 because I didn't learn my lesson. And then eventually my third or fourth year medical school I bought the laptop I still use today which is about $1,500. So total cost right around $2,500. Next we have to talk about the infamous exam fees. Obviously in medical school you have to take a lot of board or license exams. These are tests you have to take to essentially move on to the next part of your journey. And if you don't pass it typically your school won't allow you to go to the next phase. And so you have at least when I was in medical school you had step one which was at that time graded. Now it's pass-fail. If you guys need more help on those there'll be an episode or a video linked down below. The cost is about $645 to if I remember right. More fees may have bring that up to about $700 to $800. Step 2CK which you typically will take after your third year of medical school right before your fourth year is also about the same cost about $600 to $800. And unfortunately it doesn't stop there because when I was in medical school and it makes me feel a little old as I say this I actually take step 2CS which was like the second part of step 2. And I literally had to go fly to a different city. Thankfully Houston, Texas for me. And take a $13 to $1500 exam not including cost of actually living and flying over there. So thankfully they've taken that away but that was an extra $1400 added to my budget. And then obviously in residency usually by your first or second year you take step 3 which is your final licensing exam. That's $895 as the making of this episode. And while all of that feels like a lot I feel like we're just barely scratched the surface in terms of cost. Next we have to talk about just resources to get through medical school because ideally everything your medical school offers within the tuition should be enough to cover for everything you need to pass those board exams to do really well to be a great doctor. Unfortunately that's not the case and that really varies in terms of what school you went to. I felt like I got great education but still needed extra or felt like at the time that I needed extra to do well on my board. So we talked about just common resources things like online med ed. Thankfully I was lucky that my school paid for it for the major rotations that I needed. I also paid for resources like firecracker which was really early on in medical school that was about $300. Common resources like patelma that was 75 bucks sketchy. I shared with a few friends on one account so I paid about 50 bucks over the span of several months. Obviously I purchased question banks like Uworld, USMLERX as well as Kaplan so all of those combined ended up being anywhere from $800 to $1000 in the span of the entirety of medical school. And then things such as extra books which obviously can't keep track of all of them. Most of them were anywhere from the range of 30 to 50 bucks. And if you just take about all of the rotations that I had to be on most of them I bought some kind of textbook or found something online. So overall cost of textbooks anywhere from $500 to $750. Next up we have to talk about clothes which now as a resident I can be a little bit laid back on and typically wear scrubs to work on most days as a physician. But as a medical student you have to make yourself look really nice and presentable. And so I would make sure I don't have to be buttoned down shirt with a tie, nice shoes, slacks, etc. And then obviously have a different variation for each day of the week. Now thankfully I'm pretty frugal and I don't really care too much about how I look or how many clothes I reuse for how long. I usually would find some of the best dress shirts. Also I tend to be on the lengthier side and couldn't really always find the clothes for my size. So I would typically go for places like Ross, TJ Maxx, or Marshall clothes where it would typically be high fashion brands and they would be selling them anywhere from $17 to $20 for a set of nice but down shirts. And so I think in an entirety of medical school probably spent about $500 to $750. Still keep most of the shirts that I have to this day. And thankfully I've never been that big into clothes and so I feel like the one I have got me through it still does the same. Now that so far is what I would consider to be an overall pretty complete list of just the cost of medical school in college this far but unfortunately that doesn't end there. Next we have to talk about the actual applying process of getting into residency. If you're not familiar residency is essentially you're anywhere from your first three to seven years of being an actual physician where you're training to be whatever actual doctor you want to be. So if you want to be an orthopedic surgeon you would spend about five to seven years within that field. If you want to be an internal medicine doctor like myself it's three years out to medical school. And so we'll talk about salary in those years a little bit later but there is a process just like it was to get into medical school of actually getting to residency. So number one we'd talk about the actual cost of applying to residency. For me thankfully I went to a good school I kind of had an idea of where I wanted to go where I didn't. So I didn't apply to as many schools as most students do. The cost is typically about 99 dollars for your first 10 applications or 10 different programs and then anywhere from 17 to 19 dollars for each program after that. And then once you get about like 20 then it gets a little bit less. Personally I only apply to 20 programs so that put my cost about right under 300 dollars but that's actually pretty abnormal. Most students will go anywhere from 30 to 40 to 50 programs and that can easily put their application costs anywhere to the thousands. If you're interested in how to do well prepping to get into residency and don't want to apply to 50 programs make sure you check out some other programs and videos down below of how to increase your chances of getting into residency. Regardless of how many programs you do apply to once you do get interviews and you're like I don't want to check this place out you obviously have to pay for the cost of travel flights hotels and lodging there. Typically somebody would usually spend about 1500 to 2000 dollars depending on how many programs they apply to how many interviews they go on. Thankfully I didn't apply to as many most of them tend to be in the state so I was driving to most locations and I also had a lot of credit card points. The most places that I went outside of the state were places that I wanted to either visit or go on vacation with my now wife. So overall in addition to the credit card points that I had racked up over the first four years of medical school I had spent about 500 dollars on the cost of travel and lodging so not too crazy. And you would think at this point that that's pretty much it like they've had enough of my money but no even before I got into residency into my number one choice they still required me to pay an extra 200 dollars to do this physician and training license like application in the state of Texas. I'm not sure if it's included in other states but essentially had to pay to basically say that I could train in the state of Texas although I got into residency there. Lots of little hooploss and I'm sure I missed something there but if you add up the entire cost of everything we talked about so far in this episode now maybe off by a few hundred a few thousand dollars depending on which estimate I took the total cost ends up being about to have our attack 169,390 dollars. That obviously includes the cost of college, medical school, applying to residency, all applications and exams and boards and stuff that I had to do. Now what that 169,000 doesn't include is the cost of interest over those four years of medical school so my ultimate medical school debt by the time I graduated was right about 192 to 196 thousand dollars. And as I've learned the hard way on the medical journey the cost never stopped coming. In fact in residency I probably spent anywhere from four to five thousand dollars doing things as basically as registering for board exams like USMLE as well as in my internal medicine boards which I'll take in a few months as well as just applying to have my license in the state of Texas where I'll start working in the month of August and having things like my DEA license each of those cost you know a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars each accumulating to five to six thousand dollars of extra cost so if you sum that up with my medical school debt that is a total cost of right around two hundred thousand dollars. Now I don't know about you but I may have to pause this episode just to have a breath of fresh air and get away from that number but let's go ahead and transition to talking about how my number of two hundred thousand compares to the typical medical school graduate. Now the numbers will obviously vary depending on your source. I'll link down one that I actually enjoy it break down pretty much every year also different medical schools and their cost of your interest you can check out the data from education data.org I will link that blog post down below. They basically said that the estimate after just four years of graduating from medical school doesn't actually include the cost of college is about two hundred and forty one thousand six hundred dollars. And then if you assume that you never paid any type of interest or anything on your loan then after three years of residency you're about two hundred and eighty nine thousand five hundred and forty six dollars in debt that's just insane. And depending on how familiar you are with the education tract of being a doctor you may say two hundred eighty nine is a lot of money but you're going to make six figures anyways that's not terrible. First of all that's a lot of money regardless of how much money you're making. And two unfortunately you go through residency after graduating medical school here in the United States so for me thankfully it was only three years but for some people it can be upwards to seven that doesn't even include things like fellowship so you'd be trying to be a cardiologist or oncologist or a specialist in orthopedic surgery on doing just a spine in the hand. That requires more years and the average salary for me for example in residency was about fifty nine thousand it's multiplied by three my total salary this was a pre-tax is a hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars. And so if you compare that to the overall debt or just the forty thousand dollars of interest gained over three years of residency it does start to take an impact. Now before I get into what I would have done differently which I definitely hope you stick around for I was interested on how long it takes the average doctor or somebody who graduates from medical school to pay off their debt because I really couldn't find an easy number and after doing a lot of research really couldn't find a straightforward answer. In fact I just found that the number varies and it makes sense depending on your tuition where you live your situation do you have a family or not what specialty you ultimately go into and so I ultimately had just had to rely on a bunch of reddit and quorum post and found that the average was anywhere from about 10 to 12 years after graduating from residency typically with people will finish and get their first real boy or real girl doctor job and the average age about 30 to 33 and then found that most people were getting their loans paid off by their early 40s late 40s but I was finding some scary stories like this one for example in quora where somebody was graduating from their medical school debt with five hundred thousand dollars in debt even with a six figure salary most doctors don't make more than two to three hundred thousand dollars obviously some specialists will get into the higher range that is still a lot of money to pay off and if you add in the cost of other living expenses such as paying your mortgage or just saving for a house paying tuitions or paying costs for education for your kids that is stressful so you know how long it takes varies for me personally I hope it doesn't take me 10 years in fact and as I get my first big boy job in just a few months I hope my wife and I can sit down and have a plan and of understanding what our kind of goals are both financially as well as paying off this debt and so maybe in the next three or four or five years that that will be off our balance sheet but we'll see I'll be an update that will have for you guys as I go through this journey now finally I want to end today's episode probably the most important part of this number is nice it was kind of scary obviously for me to go through that but hopefully it gives you a little bit light of the different costs things that you would probably have to consider and I will probably argue that my cost of medical school education just compared to average is a lot cheaper I went to a state school I lived at home I had some scholarships things worked in my favor that may not be your case at all times you may be applying to more residencies because you know mid-school was a little bit harder the board exams can go your way you may have gone to a mid or low tier institution that means you just have to apply to more programs so just keep that in mind is that if anything I would go ahead and look at the estimated cost and if you're living in an area that has a higher cost of living like the northeast or in the west coast like California then that cost will definitely be higher so use some of those numbers use the data from the blog post that I'll link down below to get those numbers yourself but let's go ahead and break down some of the things that I would have done differently starting with number one which is I definitely would have bought less resources until definitely pressed to do so now the cost of resources and paying for things probably wasn't a big proportion of the total cost of medical school we'll get into that in a second but one thing I did feel the worst is when I bought a resource even if it's like $300 and didn't end up using it and I feel like the value of your dollar especially when it's you ultimately paying for that loan later you have to remember the rule that you typically if you borrow a dollar you typically will pay about $2 back for each one so when you get a resource you get a book you get something because you think it's going to help you medical school hopefully this channel helps you realize that more resources doesn't actually mean better results if you're interested all the free resources linked down below helps you understand how to actually get those better results but I've learned from experiences that if I bought that $300 resource now probably would have done the test would I pay $600 for this resource and the answer was no probably wouldn't have bought it and that would have helped me with any book any type of resource any type of q-bank because it would have forced me to say one luxury you're going to use it and two is the worth double the price and if the answer was no then I probably would have held off until I made that decision that yes it was later on number two I would have definitely decreased or considered decreasing my living costs now because I would never lived on my own and trying to then figure out how to balance living with a roommate I just made the decision at least my first year to live by myself and I think I got comfortable despite the cost of my rent which arguably was pretty low at $900 in central Dallas Texas even at the year of 2015 I was pretty low but I had you know great relationships great friendships and the span of my second and third year medical school have easily found somebody to live with and find a good situation where that rent may have gone from 900 to even $700 that would have saved me thousands and thousands of dollars over the span of four years of medical school and ultimately in my med school debt and do I think that living by myself gave me that much more compared to $20 to $30,000 I could have saved it's arguable you know living by myself is where the empty journey started and where I was able to do all of this video and podcasting so maybe it was worth the extra cost but you know honestly I don't know but that was something I'd be at least considered to give you to keep as food for thought when you're making that same decision should I live by myself or should I live with a roommate probably are you find a roommate and if you can't bear them try to find another roommate until you say I have to live by myself reflection number three is definitely considered going to a cheaper medical school if you have the decision which thankfully medical school you do between looking at your options I would at least say that if two institutions are roughly similar one even a tad bit worse I would consider going to the cheaper option knowing that you can work your butt off and overcome the difference now obviously if the difference is that I want to become surgeon general in the United States and you're getting into Harvard another another mid tier then obviously one option is going to help you achieve your goals but if you're not really quite sure what your goals are going to be like I just want to be a good family's medicine doctor I want to be a good surgeon I just want to be a good doctor and this place is close to my home the tuition is nicer or this place is in a fancy area but they overall get into the same kind of residencies depending on what I'm interested in I'd probably say find the cheaper option you'll definitely save yourself you know thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars honestly over the span of four years and definitely with all the interest that you'll cure and finally reflection number four is definitely look for more scholarships this definitely became more of a priority for me as I started to see my med school debt start to build up definitely my third and fourth year but as I've learned the hard way it is hard to make a dent in your medical school education with just one or two scholarships unless they're really big it's sometimes much easier to find a few smaller scholarships that you cure for over time you just have to make that practice before getting into medical school ideally your institution gives you some educational scholarships and then you just keep doing the process every year and try to see if you can just make some kind of small dent over the span of four years that's going to be a big dent now again for me I was gracious enough to get about seven thousand dollars which again is still a good chunk of change but I'm pretty sure if I decided to just be a little bit more proactive I could at least found more money that would now make me have to pay less at the moment but that guys is my entire breakdown of how much it costs me to become a physician here in the United States now I'm obviously not done I know even as I'm becoming a doctor I'm gonna have to keep paying for more and more but hopefully this gives you a nice breakdown of the entire journey let me know what you guys think in the comment section down below if you're watching on YouTube again my numbers don't necessarily mean there can be your numbers in fact I argue that you probably should estimate over whatever I've brought in this episode do you have any questions make sure you add them in the comment section if you did feel he got some value out of this that's really all I try to do in these episodes because honestly the majority what we do here by design here at the MD journey is meant to be free I would argue about 99% of it and that's to essentially help you do better on your journey from my successes my failures and all other people that I've worked with over the experiences so if you feel like man yeah there's some value spit out in this episode go ahead and hit that like button hit that subscribe button hit that application bell let's know the podcast go ahead and hit that follow or subscribe and your favorite listening platform or share it with somebody who do you feel like this could help maybe not this episode but something else that we've shared in the past overall I'm hoping that we can just help each other spread some good vibes in the feel that's everyone for themselves if you did just let me know in the comment section hit that like subscribe button and if you did get some value if you enjoyed this episode and you want more where that came from definitely consider checking out our med school success handbook this was really an entire kind of so far a 6000 word handbook that I've had for lessons and tips that I've gotten throughout my medical school experience that will definitely help you make the experience a lot easier medical school is definitely hard it doesn't have to be as hard as we all make it so if you want to know some of my favorite tips strategies that I've learned absolutely free guide go ahead and check it out below I'm always updating it because I always come to remember new nuggets and experiences from students that I work with to go ahead and check that down below if you're interested and as always if you enjoyed this episode go ahead and check out this episode right here on how to use Anki like a pro as well as this episode right here on how to study for step one now that it's pass fail as always my friends thanks for being a part of my journey hopefully I was a little help to you guys on yours now we'll see you guys in the next one


Yn y cwmhiliad, mae gweithio'r fideo yma o'r cyfleoedd yw'r cyffredig yn ymddangos. Mae'r diagram ond ei wneud o'r tythio'r cyffredig yn ymweld ar hyn yw... Felly yw'r bod yn dweud i'n dyn nhw'n ddysgu o'r holl ymdau, yw'n ddod eich cyffredig o'r cyffredig yn ni'n ddysgu yw'r cyffredig. Felly mae gennych y dyn nhw'n ddyn nhw, a maen nhw'n ddyn nhw lle eich cyffredig yn 50, Felly, mae gennym ni'n gwybod yw'r gweithio'r cyfnod o'r 5. Mae'r gweithio'r diagram yn ymgyrch. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r 26. Felly mae'n cael ei ddweud o'r gweithio'r gweithio, ac mae'n gweithio'r gweithio ar y llwyllach, oedd yn y ddwy'r gweithio'r gweithio. Ac mae'r twyr o'r cyfrifiadau yn 26-5. Felly, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r 1 o'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio? Fe yna bryd o ddaeth i am ddidd оч toast cofnolaeth oedradd-Ormychsal oelleadio ei ddweudio gweithio arno NEW Mae'r ddweudio sicrho sydd oedd y maesawd digon nhw. Mae'n meddwl o'rnoch gyda blaillio ez Gertrwane. Mae'n dod i mesurio. Felly mae haar eich gwleigio ar gweithio'r Greithilee sydd yn eu meddwl o'r lines.�료 sydd erir. Fe yw'r gweithio arni fel dangor gweithio� Williams bandf braking podcast o'r gwleithio. ydych chi'n gweld? Yn ystod dwi'n ddim o'n mynd i ddim yn ymdweud y tawddol a'r trafoddol a'r ddau, ond rydym ni'n dweud y cyfaciliad y bwret. Yn ymwysgrifeth, mae'n fwy o 50cm ac rwy'n dweud ymwysgrifeth. Yn ymwysgrifeth, ymwysgrifeth, ymwysgrifeth. Dwy'n dweud ymwysgrifeth. Yn ymwysgrifeth, mae'n dweud ymwysgrifeth. Yn ymwysgrifeth, mae'n dweud 99 ym 100, ym 100 mae'n dweud ymwysgrifeth, ac rwy'n dweud yn dweud ymwysgrifeth? Dwy'n dweud dyma'n Grin teisw principleau, dysgu 25cm sy'n gweld ac rwy'n dweud hyn ymwysgrifeth, dweud ymwysgrifeth rwy'n dweud ymwysgrifeth. Felly'r rwyf gwell yn llwyddi. A'r gwybod yw'n gwneud am hynny'n wych. Yn ymwysgrifeth yma, ac rwy'n mwy o'r llwyddiol ac oeddiw. input. Right, so now someone wants to come along and fill those numbers in if they can. So we're going to build a stacked bar chart but what are we going to make that stacked bar charting? We can't just highlight all of these and add in a graph that's not going to work like that. So we need to figure out kind of how much is remaining in the burette, how much was used, and well the error at the top. So you don't need to at this point do the labelling because no one else is going to see this in the background but it might be useful to keep an eye on it. So well the used is, well we're going to calculate this separately, it's going to be the ending point minus the start point, so that's how much was used. The error is obviously going to be the start point and then the remaining amount, well that's the capacity minus the end point, isn't it? So if we add all of those up we realise it adds to 50. Okay there are a couple of things that we can actually now do to make this a little bit more flexible. So what if, I'm going to set this end point to 20 for a moment, what if it was a smaller burette and it was 25? So what we want to do is try and get these numbers not as raw numbers but as percentages. So in the first instance I'm just going to take all of that and divide it by the capacity. So each of these wrapping brackets around it, divide by the capacity, don't need to wrap brackets around this one but divide by capacity. Now that adds up to 1, if I change the capacity back to 50 still adds up to 1. That makes things a little bit neater, especially when we bring in a bar chart later, the axis is going to always be between 0 and 100% which is really useful if we want to add this flexibility where we don't really know what the capacity is going to be in advance. We want to give you a user that flexibility. Now let's have a look again. Let's go back and have a look at what happens as you fill this in. We've got 50, the capacity of the starting point is 5, and what you might notice is that the amount used now becomes negative. That's not really brilliant, is it? We never at any point have a negative number here, so that will screw with any graph. So instead we're going to try and get rid of this where it's going to subtract these two things together if that's blank. You can do that with this statement, you can do it with all the fancy things, but what I'm going to do is use max and then inside that max formula just put in both of those. Now what that's going to do is it's going to find the largest of these values and subtract the starting point away from that. So this is blank, the ending point is blank, it's going to count it as 0, so it's going to take away from 5. So there you go, at the very beginning the amount used is 0. So if our end point was in fact higher, well it's going to come out as being used as 0, isn't it? But if the ending point is a bit further down the purette, it calculates it correctly. Now what else? Our remaining is in fact at this point kind of incorrect as well, because this is going to add up to more than one. Great, so let's rethink this from scratch. Well we only need to know what is the remaining actually. We don't really need to know anything about the capacity at this point. So actually let's just do equals 1 minus the amount used, minus the amount that's there. Ah, now it's always going to add up to the right amount. You get rid of that, the remaining amount is 1 or 98% of it. So it's now starting to work a bit better, it's given these values. And I'll just insert that bar graph now, just so you can see how that's going to work. So if we go to insert the bar chart, it hasn't quite worked because it hasn't stacked them. So we just go to switch rule column, now they're all on top of each other. And I'll start getting rid of a couple of things just to tidy it up. So you can see it, make it a bit smaller. And you can kind of see what's going to happen here. If my starting point is a bit lower, that grey area is a bit smaller because that's going to be the air at the top. The ending point is a bit lower, then the remaining goes down and the titra gets larger. So what else do we need to do here? Well one of the important things is I've got to go into this axis by double clicking it. And I'm just going to make sure that the minimum is set to 0 and the maximum is set to 1. So, as long as these big reset buttons appear, that's then locked in place. The last thing you want to do is, if you mess around with anything, that it starts rescaling this. Otherwise it'll not work. This is part of the reason why you end up dividing by the capacity to make this actually kind of more of a percentage. So now no matter what this is or what order we start sticking things in, it's always going to be scaled correctly. It's the next thing. I'm going to just delete these axes, select them, hit the delete key. Nothing really fancy. I'm going to make sure I've got an end point in here. And then it's all just case of formatting. So this top one, I'm going to click the grey one, come to format. Shape fill, no fill. Get rid of any fill there. And the middle one, shape fill. I'll go to texture and kind of more textures. Pattern fill, this is the one. I'll usually just pick kind of a bubbly looking one. Maybe a bit of a wish. Maybe a lighter blue than that. And then just add an outline to it as well so I can see it. And the bottom one, well that's the same blue as on that diagram, which I'll show you in a moment. So this is it. I'm just going to clear the outline. In another point, I'm going to set the starting point as zero. So this is as tall as it gets. Make it a bit thinner, put it somewhere, and then bring this to the front or copy and paste it to the right place. And then just going to resize them to sit on top. So maybe I'll make this a little bit thinner. Make sure I remove the outline from the whole graph. Once I remove the grid lines from Excel, there you go. Now it looks like it's kind of in place. So I just need to hand just that just a little bit. But now suddenly it's starting to look right. Change the class to 50. Oh, now it's empty the bureaucrat completely. Let's move it a little bit wider. The end point is 25. You can see it came half-wiffle. If the starting point was 10, you can see we kind of started a little bit earlier. So that's it. So the main thing there is you can probably delete these labels if you don't need them anymore. Maybe make that white or hide the thing. And then move that over the top of it, put it in the right place that you want. And there you go, you've got your titration simulator right there.


I wish to speak this afternoon on the serious threat to the rule-based international order from the international trade perspective based on the insight I have gained from my more than 35 years working experience as a trade diplomat. I would like to highlight two elements which are currently threatening the rule-based international trade order. First, unilateralism by abuse of national security exception and second, paralyzing the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO by abuse of this consensus rule. The crown jewel of Rugelland agreements was the establishment of effective dispute settlement mechanism in international trade prohibiting unilateral sanctions by its members. When the Rugelland of multilateral trade negotiations were finalized after nearly eight years of difficult negotiations signed here in Marrakesh, setting up the WTO in 1995, all members undertook not to resort to unilateral action and all the sanctions therefore must go through the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism. In these years, however, the unilateral actions of the most important members of the WTO have reappeared with these members insisting that they base their action on the international trade rules. For example, the United States has imposed additional tariffs on imported steel and aluminum in March 2017 and is currently exploring the possibility of imposing one on the auto and auto parts whose importance and impact on the world economy are far behind comparison with steel and aluminum. U.S. defends this action based on Section 232 of Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which authorized the president to take action when his national security is in danger by the import. It justifies its action citing the national security exception of the WTO. As it is not logical, no reasonable to claim that imported steel and aluminum were eventually imported cars from allies, including European Union, Korea or Japan, it is regarded as an abuse of national security exception of the WTO. European Union and other members have brought this case to the WTO, which established a panel to examine its consistency with the relevant WTO rules. What is more serious than worrisome is that some members have begun to use the national security exception provision of the WTO while they are criticizing the United States. Invoking national security to justify the retaliation against the dispute not related to trade is a good example. In this sense, it is very encouraging to see that in a ruling over Ukrainian transit issue with Russia, the WTO panel in April confirmed the WTO's right to review national security claims, rejecting the traditional argument of the powerful countries that national security is not subject to review but self-judging. Ladies and gentlemen, in the international trading system, the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO serves as an independent institution tasked with upholding the rule of law and deterring unilateralism. It is critical therefore for our international community to work together to guarantee the proper functioning of WTO dispute settlement mechanism. So it is with a sense of disappointment to witness its collapse due to one member's veto of the appointment for new members of WTO appellate body. Coming this September, just one member out of seven will remain on the body. Since the WTO appellate body needs at least three members to deliberate, the WTO dispute settlement system will come to a grinding halt by that time. The WTO dispute settlement system with this appellate body has been key to the security and predictability of the multilateral trading system. Without the proper system of enforcement, the multilateral rules can no longer work effectively. The U.S. complains that there is no effective check on appellate body decisions. The impact of overreaching appellate body decisions create a tradition of stair decisis which has emerged from WTO case law. As a result, panels depart from previous decisions of appellate body only in rare instances. The appellate body is also criticized for issuing advisory opinions on matters not raised by the parties or not related to the dispute at hand. International trade experts including myself sympathize with these U.S. concerns particularly because the decisions of the panels or appellate body should not result in de facto amendment of the agreement without the consent of its members. In this sense, I can see the broad support for the reform proposal made by the European Union at the end of last year together with the other members to address the concerns expressed by the United States and at the same time to preserve the overall successful dispute resolution system of the WTO. But it is not certain if a way out of current deadlock could be found. I think the reappearance of unilateralism wherein the members are abusing the national security exception and paralyzing WTO dispute system are two important examples of weaponization of the law in the international trade. In order to overcome this serious threat to the rule based international trading system, like-minded countries need to more actively cooperate and unite to uphold the principle of rule of law abiding by the already leached agreements. Before I conclude, I would like to state that though I have highlighted U.S. trade policy in my presentation, I understand and agree with the current U.S. trade policies on many points, if not all. And I highly appreciate U.S. contribution in spreading the value of rule of law all over the world and convenes that they will continue to do so in the future. Thank you. Thank you. So it seems like wherever you look, whether international business or international politics or trade, the rule of law based system is under threat.


Hi my name is Cassie Owensmore and I am a librarian from Seneca, South Carolina and this is why I decided to apply for the Global Learning Fellowship. I teach in a small town in a small rural town and it's lovely and it's wonderful but I was really concerned that my students would not experience a world outside of our small community and then I started thinking about it you know I haven't really traveled a lot myself and so I can't ask my students to do something that I haven't done and so I decided to apply to the Global Learning Fellowship so that I can get that experience of being in another culture experience another language you know learning about their history and the people and bring that back to my students so that I can ignite this fire of being a global learner in my kids because I can't be a global teacher if I haven't stepped out either so I had to step out of my comfort zone and I'm a little nervous but I'm really excited about what I'm teaching my students that it's okay to be nervous that it's okay to to be a little uneasy but even in that uneasiness and even in that nervousness we can step out and meet people and interact with people and engage with people and learn from people who look different from us who speak a different language who have different ideas because that's what global learning is about it's about meeting people and learning from them