When I read this article, I was reminded of some of the ‘unusual’ encounters I too have had with patients over the years.
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Warning: If butts and guts gross you out…don’t read
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I turned in my pager yesterday.
This is not exciting news to most of you, but trust me - it was a big deal. I feel free!
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Saying good-bye to all my ‘clinic’ patients this week was harder than I thought it would be. I’ll miss many of them. I wrote thank-you notes to all the nursing staff I’ve worked with - even the ones who loved to haze us as interns (Good luck to the new interns - I don’t eny you).
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I’ve been to more parties, lunches, dinners this past month then all 3 years combined - saying good-bye to the incredible Residents whose friendships I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
We
laughed together (punking each other),
cried together (hey, even Peds has borderline-abuse Attendings),
and once in a while
we even saved some lives together.
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Now, I look forward to my new Attending position taking care of kids in the most diverse borough in NYC. Many of my patients will come from families of hard-working immigrants…reminding me on a daily basis of the work and sacrifice of my own parents.
In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision to turn down private practice opps or fellowships when I realized I had a unique opportunity to provide good health care to kids who otherwise may not receive it.
So I formally (but unofficially) finished residency last night when I received my recognition ‘diploma’.
This post is dedicated to my very best friend in the world. During med school, I thought I had things pretty under ‘control’ with the ‘balancing-your-life’ theme. People manage their lives, marriages, homes all differently. Just observations (no judgement) from my lens - many partnerships easily become unbalanced through this crazy process (or any career-aspiring process). Some of my friends’ spouses (who all happened to be wives) would joke about being ’single parents’ because their spouse was always ‘busy’ studying, on-call, etc… Although they tried not to complain about the process, there was a sense that the chores of life (read: “I’m not your maid!”) weren’t shared as easily. But having said that, many colleagues were sensitive to the needs of their families and would treat med school like a 9-5 job, with evenings solely dedicated to their home life. We did the same. At the end of med school, Dan turned to me one day and said, “I was expecting you’d be gone all the time, but it didn’t turn out that way. That was easy.” I agreed. So, med school finished and we patted ourselves on the back (with lots of gratitude for our supportive families) bracing for what came next. And oh did it come. I would never wish ‘residency’ upon anyone. Enough said. Of course, we continued to have emotional support from our families - in fact, I’m eternally grateful for my sister who came to visit often during the erosive intern year. But moving away from ‘home’ left us only holding on to each other.
In reflecting about the last 3 years, there is only one reason why I made it. So instead of congratulating myself, I told Dan last night, “you’re a rockstar - congratulations honey!” and he laughed. That laugh got me through so many horrible call nights, terrible crazy (read: ‘cuckoo crazy’) nursing interactions, and so much more.
Cheers to growing old together my love!
As if thinking about electrolyte imbalance, calculating fluid deficits, and figuring how many grams per kilogram per day of amino acids a micro-preemie is getting isn’t enough to numb my brain, I’ve had crash courses in immigration law and real estate (NYC style) recently.
I’m still afraid to open the binder I received during my training session for volunteers for “Doctors of the World.” It’s filled with vast amounts of information including the complexities of our legal system as pertaining to how survivors of torture gain asylum in the U.S. The gentleman who dedicates his life as an attorney to this was kind enough to dumb down the language for us physicians. I can’t imagine wading through tax law or real estate law or any such ’stuff.’ How did you do it Emma? (practice law, study law, not fall asleep while doing any of the aforementioned activities…kidding dear.) Emma first introduced me to the term amortization and related variants a while back which I tried to push out of my already-over-stuffed brain until it resurfaced at the other crash course I had recently - info for first-time home buyers in NYC. I went purely to learn and plan for the future - I left with a headache…
