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.

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