newest Blog

i’m trying out this new blogger website…although i’m super attached to my diaryland blog. we’ll see how it works. today i went into “work” for a couple hours. i only call it work because it feels like work, except that i’m paying for it. i still haven’t had the chance to intubate a patient, hopefully this week. the doctors at the hospital i’m working at are really strange. everyday someone tells me how miserable they are in their job. if they could do it over, they say, they wouldn’t go into medicine. you’re always working, you don’t have time for your family, the money isn’t good anymore. and on and on and on. i’ve already convinced myself that medicine sucks, i don’t need all of this extra reinforcement.

yesterday i went to the museum of science and industry with dipti and her friends sheila and judy (marissa was meeting up with old buddies). we watched this IMAX movie called “Ocean Oasis”. it was so amazing. it was filmed in baja california and mexico. it was all about the web of life and how we’re all connected. just being in that theatre and watching all of those underwater pictures made me feel so at peace. i told dipti to make sure my ashes are scattered over the ocean when i die. she agreed, although we argued over who would die first. she think it’ll be her cause of the loops, i think it’s going to be me cause i’m so accident prone. not to nice of a think to think about. anyway, i thought about how much i love the ocean and how i wish i had gills or lots of whale blubber so i could live there. and i wondered to myself, why didn’t i become a marine biologist or something? i would have loved that. i would have loved waking up in the morning and going to work. i don’t think i’ll feel that way in medicine. trudging over to the stale O.R. early in the morning, standing on my feet all day, making my way to clinic or to the hospital to check on people i will or have operated on. i don’t think it takes an extraordinary person to be a good surgeon. in fact, i think it takes a callous and calculating person to be good. cause if you care, if you’re invested it makes the whole things more difficult and less efficient. if i’ve learned anything in medicine it that caring for your patients get you no where. on my hardest rotation, ct surgery, i tried to get to know the people. i was intrigued by the idea of fixing the heart. i wanted to know how these people felt about the surgeries, about being so sick. i remember almost all of their names. they knew me and they really loved me. they always asked for me and felt better after i came to talk to them. cause i was the only one that really listened. i got the lowest grade of all my sub-i’s on that rotation. on all of my comments they talked about how i could improve my patient care?! I can improve on that? funny, i remembered their names, ages, birthdates, hometowns, occupations, all that stuff, and the attending couldn’t even remember their gender. or perhaps he could, but he just didn’t bother to notice or care. it totally was totally shocking to me how often he talked about mrs. k and referred to her as a him or “this guy.” he did that with mr. k, mrs. v, mr. c, and even mr. r who had been in the SICU on his service for almost 4 months. and i need to work on my patient care? how can you take criticism like that seriously?

so i think i should maybe do something else, cause wanting to balance out the whackness in medicine may not be a good enough reason to hate your life everyday…hate the people you’re around and hate how being around that makes you feel. the thing i fear most it that i will become one of those surgeons who leaves their patient waiting for hours or talks crap about them when they’re under anesthesia or even forgets their name or gender. i don’t want that to happen, and i am so miserable when i’m practicing medicine that i can’t say i won’t eventually end up like that.