I had so many dreams for my time at UCLA. At last I was getting on to university and getting serious about my education. I signed up for a special “Quiet Floor” at the Rieber Hall dormitory. It was for serious students. When I was asked about what type of roommate I wanted, I wrote someone quiet.
They matched me up with this great Vietnamese kid. He was wonderful. He was quiet and considerate. He was serious with his studies. And then my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forced me to leave UCLA after nine months in June of 1989 and I never returned.
I haven’t kept up with anyone from my dorm and yet I think so much about my time there. It was where I lost my virginity. It was where many of my dreams died.
I just Googled my former roommate and he has done so well for himself and for our country, just as I would have expected. At the same time, if he were to look at my life, it would not terribly surprise him.
From the Maine Medical Center:
Dr. Han is the Director of CORE and a health services researcher and board certified general internist and palliative care physician. He received an M.D. at New York University School of Medicine, an M.A. in Bioethics and an M.P.H. from at the University of Pittsburgh, and completed Internal Medicine residency training at UCLA and a fellowship in cancer prevention and control at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Han’s general research interests are in risk communication, shared decision making, clinical prediction models, cancer, and palliative and end-of-life care. His specific interest is in understanding and improving the communication and management of uncertainty in health care, and his work bridges the disciplines of health services and behavioral research. His clinical activity is in palliative medicine, and he is an attending physician at the Hospice of Southern Maine. Dr. Han is actively involved in initiatives to promote shared decision making and to teach risk communication skills to medical students and physicians, and is a member of the Editorial Board of Medical Decision Making and the International Patient Decision Aids Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration.
