May 30, 2012

• A Return to Me

  A minor interlude from your previously scheduled travel posting

  —

  I actually felt more like myself this weekend than I have in a long time. WHich is a strange thing if you think about it. I mean, I’m always myself, aren’t I? Who else would I be?

  And yet, over the last several months I just havent felt like me. I wouldnt call it a depression per se, although I am sure that figured into it what with the whole workplace drama. But this weekend I went up to San Francisco (Aside: hate that city, still felt pretty happy overall) for a friends wedding, came back down and had a memorial day bbq with swimming and beers, and today even was in the mood to go run a half mile with the dog and play piano. 

  I’m not sure what changed, but I’m glad it did. I find that every so often I wake up and have a wordless epiphany. It may relate to how I feel about myself, or in what direction my life is going, but I just get this driving impetus to look within myself and change something. Not because I dont like who I am, but because I could be better. 

  Even sitting down here to put virtual pen to paper, it feels like I am slowly re-learning to articulate myself in a way I haven’t been able to in some time.

  Perhaps this feeling comes at a time that I am questioning why I wanted to be a doctor. Not the same way that I did when all the hospital things first occurred, as that was more of a knee jerk reaction. But more in the sense that if I am really going to re-apply to fellowship, I should be certain that medicine is the best fit for me. To commit myself to three more years of education if I succeed the second time around means giving up higher immediate earning potential in favor of seeing only patients in an organ system in which I am interested. It means giving up California sun for Illinois winters. 

  And while I enjoy my job, and dont mind going to it, I also feel as though I dont love enough. That it doesnt bring me the mind numbing bliss that my fellow physicians seem to enjoy just from being in the hospital. And though nobody coerced, cajoled, or convinved me to go into medicine against my will, I often wonder; If I had to go back and do it all again, would I?

  In the past I said yes because without it, I would never have met the friends I now number among my closest. I would never have been privileged to see still beating heart, or the view of the inside of your digestive system or watch a complete stranger breath their last in front of me. I may or may not have lived out of state. I definetly would not have the power and authority to influence people as I do.

  As I sit here with the few cards and gifts I have received from my patients over the last three years, I realize that yes, I would still do it to myself again. Somewhere along the way I lost myself in the process of medicine and let connecting with people (not necessarily helping them, just connecting) become secondary to the workflow. I could blame the hospital environment, I could chalk it up to burnout, but ultimately I let it happen to me. It’s as though I lost the forest for the trees.

  And so I have set out to recapture that feeling. Even if it doesnt begin at the hospital. Perhaps I will volunteer reading to kids, or give a dollar to someone homeless, or just call up a friend for no reason other than to say hello. I aspire to be more than I am. Whether it is like Captain America, who sees the best in everybody (you know, except nazis ) Or Doctor Who, a man fascinated by creation itself and always thinking on his feet, I want to positively impact others around me.

  My heroes may be fictional, but that doesnt make them any less real, or inspiring. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what I needed to realize to make a change.

  Thank you for your time, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

  -J

  • 12:26 am
  • 2 Comments