On being a General Surgery Resident

No one told me that residency would make me question myself one hundred times over every day. That I’d feel so inadequate, to the point that I wonder if I’m in the right place. No one tells you that there’s a constant feeling of being below average. In the eyes of your superiors, nothing is ever enough or well done. You are always at the end of someone’s displeasure or, at best, their criticism.

You try so hard to balance between sick patients on the floor, the constant nag of the emergency department, and rushing to and from the operating room to perfect the skills around which your profession rotates. There all rare moments where you think you’ve reached some sort of balance, moments you think to yourself, “Oh, there’s some progress today!” Then someone hits you with, “Well, you didn’t do that very well.”

Your peers never complain, or at least you don’t hear them do so. So, in consequence neither do you. Then you wonder, “Is it just me?” You play strong and push through each day. You go home drained, more so mentally than just physically. Don’t get me wrong, physically you’re a wreck, but it’s nowhere near as comparable to the mental strain that you leave the hospital with.

It’s a tearing feeling. It’s such a heavy, painful feeling to live with.

I’ve convinced myself a hundred times over that the only way to survive this, is to applaud my own accomplishments. To recognize my strengths just as I would pinpoint my shortcomings. As a good friend would said, “Pat yourself on the shoulder,” and she’d do so physically. I tell the medical students I work with, “Sometimes you do such a good job, you work your a** off to get the task done, but in the end no one notices. Or even worse, it gets underestimated or ridiculed. Time after time, it will get to you. The only way out, is to celebrate your own victories.”

He told me that residency would change me, but I wasn’t quite sure what he meant at the time. Slowly each day I understand. It’s a sad, but relieving realization that you’ll never be the same ‘happy-go-lucky’, optimistic person you once were. But more a trooper with tough skin, that goes in and out smiling each day, even when she doesn’t feel like it.

Yesterday as I left the hospital after a grueling night, one of my old patients recognized me. His happiness to see me and gratitude was humbling. In a moment that I’d felt completely unaccomplished and small, he reminded me. I remembered that I was there for him, for my patients. I was there to do what was in my power or beyond to give them a chance.

I always send my patient home with the same farewell, “I hope I never see you again, unless it’s in a party somewhere.” I think I always will.

.

.

Don't Blame

When someone asks for your help, they truly need it. Asking in itself is one of the most difficult things to do for some people. Blaming them when they come to you is not helping. Respect that they let down their gaurd and actually admitted they needed help and asked. Don't push them away by firing blame upon blame.

.
.

The Letter; a Measured Art, a Master Craft

"The letter is a tactile representation of elusive human emotion."

It is for that.. I write.

.

.

Dreams Upon Clouds

And she built her dreams on clouds. She had the imagination of a child, so she imagined and imagined and imagined. 

Yes, clouds are beautiful, they're the background of fairytales. But that's exactly the point, fairytales; where everything is surreal. That's exactly how she lived, in a world of her own, in a surreal existence only she saw.

But she'd never learn would she? She'd never learn each time she fell from her cloud. She'd never learn after every time she crashed to the ground, and opened her eyes wounded and hurt.

She'd never grow up from her fairytale imagination, she never could.

.

.

Perfect Confessions

The most important things are usually the hardest to say. They're the things that you know exactly how to say, word by word. You know by heart all the stops and pauses. You know the right tones for each sentence. You've seen it happen in your head so many times, you begin questioning if it has actually already happened.

But.. Regardless.. You remain silent, you hold within you that perfect confession.

And for what reason?! Simple.. fear

....

I once read a quote, a long long time ago. I think it also adds another reason.

'The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.'

-Steven King

.

.

Intruding Thoughts

It's intriguing how one person can completely override your thoughts. How their existence intrudes on each second your mind is awake (and sometimes asleep).

It doesn't make sense to me how just one person can be your only thought for the whole day.

A Trail of Sparkly Stars

Seldom do wishes come true. You can close your eyes as tight as you can. You can wish with all your heart. You can imagine and imagine, but rarely does a wish come true.

In the rare event that it does, in the second your wish happens, in the moment that you barely believe is true because it happened so suddenly, you can almost see a faint trail of sparkly stars, stars that appeared at the very instant that your wish came true.

.

.