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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