The start of a career

There are some 30-hour shifts that are impossible to sum up in a single narrative. The range of emotions that an intern is exposed to runs the entire spectrum: On a typical day, I start by seeing patients who are staying in the hospital, usually after a surgery has been done. Often, as they're leaving, their emotions include relief, gratitude and elation over a successful surgery and hospital recovery. After seeing patients in the hospital, I go to the pre-operation area to quickly prepare patients for the first surgery of the day. Here, I often see the last, hopeful but helpless and often tearful goodbye of a patient with his/her spouse before he/she is taken back to the OR for an operation, the outcome of which is sometimes uncertain. Once the patient is asleep, the OR itself presents its own dramatic arena, as the mood amongst the team can swing instantly from irreverent joviality to high-wire tension with the single, complicated cut of a knife. After the scheduled surgeries are finished, I take calls on my pager, which include various surgical emergencies that come to the Emergency Department. These can include anything from patients crying, buckled over in extreme pain from an obstruction in their digestive tract to the organized, but highly-strung chaos of a critical trauma arriving by ambulance after a serious auto accident. All the while, as the evening and night go on, I get progressively more and more tired as my body pushes the limits of exhaustion. After 24 hours, the cycle starts all over again, and many times, during those last 6 or 8 or 10 hours, I no longer have the energy that it takes to invest in the elation, the sadness, the anxiety of patients and their families.

So much happens in 30 hours, yet so little of it is reinforced as learning - when I get home after a shift, I go immediately into recovery mode, lucky to eat and shower before my body shuts down completely into a deep slumber. That being the case, one blog post is not sufficient to chronicle 2 days, yet alone 6 months of intern year. I have, however, experienced many memorable moments that I will surely keep with me the rest of my life, and I'd like to use this blog to record them as I progress through residency. I didn't mean for this to be a medical journal, but unfortunately, I have little else to write about these days.

I'll start with a picture of Pittsburgh in February. This is a reminder for me to count my blessings that I ended up in a place like Southern California for my residency. Pittsburgh was my first choice; their medical center has few rivals, and their ENT Department is world-renowned. However, looking back on it now, to go through intern year and residency in a place with harsh winters and few familiar faces would be depressing. I feel lucky to be where I am, surrounded by family, friends, and, of course, great winter weather.