Christmas Eve. Generally one of my favorite nights of the year. The part of the Christmas season I generally find is the easiest to focus on the real meaning of Christmas. A night of family and reflection. A night of tradition, camaraderie and inner peace. My family usually spends some time in the afternoon building a snow sculpture, the scent of potpourri permeates the house and the wassail is as fragrant as it is delicious. The extended family gathers and enjoys company and a reenactment of the nativity with cute cousins as the biblical characters being directed from just "offstage" by Grandma while my dad reads the timeless words from Luke 2.
I'm gone, away from family and home, almost year-round; making my way independently, being my own man and "living the dream"...but for this one night I always return to the familiar and heartwarming. Christmas at home is almost Norman Rockwell-ian in my mind. The last time I missed Christmas Eve was 10 years ago and I was in Australia. I was dedicated full-time to Christian service and it just felt right. This year is different and I find myself having a hard time. My family is cognizant and thoughtful and has been tireless at trying to make this Christmas as painless as possible. I received several packages in the mail which have included a mini Christmas tree (complete with lights and decorations) and beautifully wrapped packages. I have presents to open and reminders of Christmas at home. Above all I have the assurance that the meaning of Christmas, the reason to celebrate, has not and will not change…
…Still, I find myself struggling this year. I feel a dichotomy of emotions. On one end I feel loved. I know my family is there. I know they love me. I have proof and reminders all around my apartment and not more than 3 feet away at this very moment. On the other end I feel very far away from where I want to be. Instead of a snow sculpture in the front yard, I got a light sprinkling of lukewarm rain on my windshield while I drove home from work. I'm drawing to the end of a particularly unpleasant month at work, and have an even more difficult one to face in January. I'm 30 and I'm watching television reruns in an otherwise quiet apartment. I feel the weight of my countless imperfections and worst, I feel like I've been hurtful to someone I care about. It wasn't intended. It wasn't malicious. But I caused this person hurt none-the-less and I can't shake the weight of that shortcoming either…
I write all this, because for me writing is cathartic. I find it helps me direct my thoughts and focus on the larger picture. Even as I write these few short paragraphs I find my heart lifting. In the grand scheme my momentary woes are "small potatoes". I have a family who loves me and whom I love. I have a calm assurance that God and His Son love all their children -- me included…I have been trying to understand the concept of hope better, and while I am still struggling to find an adequate and concise definition of the idea, I know the feeling. I'm feeling it right now. I feel the weight of this mortal experience. I feel the loneliness and frustrations common to mankind. I've had moments where hope felt lost and those moments are dark (and in those dark moments is when I find myself manifesting my many shortcomings most prominently). However, that darkness can't stand against the light of Christ and His truth. Just like I know my family is there. Just like I know they love me. Just like I have proof and reminders all around that tell me these things are true even when I'm feeling most discouraged; I know I have a Savior who is there and who loves me. I have proofs and reminders (Elder Bednar would call them "tender mercies") all round me. My life is full of them when I take a minute and allow myself to see them. My mistakes are many and wish as I might, they have had an effect on others. However, I feel hope. Hope that not all Christmases will be this lonely. Hope that even though I've been hurtful, that someday the person involved will understand that it wasn't intended. Hope that not all moths at work will be this dreary. Hope that I'll be able to build snow sculptures again with family members, and drink wassail and watch my cute cousins put on oversize bathrobes and pretend to be wise men from the east. That, I think, is what hope means…and isn't that the real spirit of Christmas?
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Ode to Intern Year
My last several posts have been like deep fried Crisco -- really really heavy! But today I find myself with just a few minutes and I reckon it's high time I write something that isn't quite so dense and unreadable! For inspiration I turn to my experience working as a first year medical resident.
I find that when I meet someone new and we are trying to be polite while at the same time not really knowing what to say to each other, the small talk generally includes (but is not limited to) our names, the weather, President Obama, why Texas is the greatest nation…errr…state on earth, and what we do for work (all of this, of course, assumes that we both speak English…I really should have tried to learn Spanish before moving to south Texas!) What is interesting to me is how people react when they find out that I am a medical resident! Almost without exception, people think that residency is this glamorous thing filled with perplexing diseases, brilliant diagnosis and of course, a little lovin' in the call rooms (I blame "House" and "Grey's Anatomy")! The truth, I'm afraid to say, is a little less flashy. A much more accurate picture of what being a first year resident is often like can be gleaned from watching that scene from Forrest Gump where the Drill Sergeant is yelling at Forrest asking "what is your soul purpose in this army?" and only wants to hear Forrest say "whatever you tell me Drill Sergeant!" This of course, varies greatly depending on which attending you are working with and what rotation you are on, but there have been plenty of times when I am listening to my attending where that scene pops into my mind and for better or for worse, the best thing to do is say "yes sir, I'll get that done!" and say nothing else. Now, before people take this all wrong and start to worry that I'm unhappy with my career let me set the record straight and say that I really do enjoy my work and I look forward to many more enjoyable and fulfilling years in this profession but that does not change the fact that there is an often amusing hierarchy in teaching hospitals that looks like this (from top to bottom):
Attendings > Senior Residents > Nurses > CNA's > Janitors > Harmless Bacteria on the toilets > Disease causing bacteria > Ebola virus > first year residents.
Let me illustrate how this principle translates over to patient care in the real world (those of you who have spent time in hospitals will begin to recognize these things).
Attending: I want to start rounds at 5:00 am
Resident (in his head): That means that I have to start my pre-rounds at 3:00 am…why can't we start rounds at 9:00 am?
Resident (out loud): Yes sir! What a brilliant idea!
** at 3:00 am the next morning after the resident walks into a the patient's room and wakes him up**
Resident: How was your night's sleep?
Perhaps only those who have been woken up or who have done the waking at 3am to ask this question will see the irony here, but it kills me every time! :)
I find that when I meet someone new and we are trying to be polite while at the same time not really knowing what to say to each other, the small talk generally includes (but is not limited to) our names, the weather, President Obama, why Texas is the greatest nation…errr…state on earth, and what we do for work (all of this, of course, assumes that we both speak English…I really should have tried to learn Spanish before moving to south Texas!) What is interesting to me is how people react when they find out that I am a medical resident! Almost without exception, people think that residency is this glamorous thing filled with perplexing diseases, brilliant diagnosis and of course, a little lovin' in the call rooms (I blame "House" and "Grey's Anatomy")! The truth, I'm afraid to say, is a little less flashy. A much more accurate picture of what being a first year resident is often like can be gleaned from watching that scene from Forrest Gump where the Drill Sergeant is yelling at Forrest asking "what is your soul purpose in this army?" and only wants to hear Forrest say "whatever you tell me Drill Sergeant!" This of course, varies greatly depending on which attending you are working with and what rotation you are on, but there have been plenty of times when I am listening to my attending where that scene pops into my mind and for better or for worse, the best thing to do is say "yes sir, I'll get that done!" and say nothing else. Now, before people take this all wrong and start to worry that I'm unhappy with my career let me set the record straight and say that I really do enjoy my work and I look forward to many more enjoyable and fulfilling years in this profession but that does not change the fact that there is an often amusing hierarchy in teaching hospitals that looks like this (from top to bottom):
Attendings > Senior Residents > Nurses > CNA's > Janitors > Harmless Bacteria on the toilets > Disease causing bacteria > Ebola virus > first year residents.
Let me illustrate how this principle translates over to patient care in the real world (those of you who have spent time in hospitals will begin to recognize these things).
Attending: I want to start rounds at 5:00 am
Resident (in his head): That means that I have to start my pre-rounds at 3:00 am…why can't we start rounds at 9:00 am?
Resident (out loud): Yes sir! What a brilliant idea!
** at 3:00 am the next morning after the resident walks into a the patient's room and wakes him up**
Resident: How was your night's sleep?
Perhaps only those who have been woken up or who have done the waking at 3am to ask this question will see the irony here, but it kills me every time! :)
Sunday, October 17, 2010
More from the Mental Shelf: The Lord's "Plan"
Being on call is a bit of a surreal experience…at least it is for me. It can be feast or famine, meaning there can either be so much to get done that you seriously consider taking the batteries out of your pager, smashing the batteries and tossing them off the roof and then flushing the remaining pieces of your pager down the nearest toilet! Or it can be quiet -- really quiet…
If I was forced to choose between the two, I'd go for the quiet because at least that way, you can feel confident that none of your patients are actively trying to die on you. Quiet, however, does have its downsides. You are all alone in the hospital. All of the fellow residents who are your day-to-day social life are off enjoying their brief time away from work and you are just sitting there waiting to put out the next "fire" as we like to call the little (or not so little) emergencies that pop up throughout the day. The clock seems to enter some kind of relativistic time warp and slows down to an impossibly slow rate and the sound of yourself humming amplifies and starts to ring in your head!
Anyway, I'm on call right now and it is quiet. I should probably spend the time reading and studying, but I'm just not in the mood right now. I want a mental escape from medicine for a few minutes, so I figured I'd see how far I can get into another "installment".
As far as actual news, there is very little to report. I am on an inpatient rehab rotation. As I was telling my parents in a brief phone conversation last night (the first in almost 2 weeks…sorry!), I enjoy the content of this rotation. It is a nice mixture of basic internal medicine and rehab specific medicine, and is very applicable to my future career. But while I enjoy the content of this rotation, the execution of it can be frustrating. Medicare and to a lesser extent, private insurance companies create a LOT of busy work that gets dumped onto residents. The hours are long and largely spent documenting, documenting, documenting. A 5 minute conversation and exam with a patient takes 50 minutes of typing at a computer to document all of the bits and pieces that are required for reimbursement from the government and insurance companies…kind of silly if you ask me…Anyway, besides the copious note-writing, I really like what I'm doing and what I'm learning. I get more confident each day that I chose the right field and I'm very happy to be able to say that.
So, with that very short news update, I'll turn my attention to another "mental shelf" item that has been on my mind in recent weeks.
Not long ago, someone taught me the phrase "the doctrine of conference" which is the phenomenon that occurs when you listen to general conference, or sacrament meeting talks or whatever and the same theme seems to pop up everywhere. The talks themselves are rarely about that actual subject but somehow that is all you end up hearing…you know what I'm talking about! I'm pretty sure most of us have had something at least similar to this happen. It's always fun for me to go back and re-read the talks if possible because so rarely do they deal with the theme I got out of them originally, and it just makes me realize all the more that I must have needed to hear whatever it was that I heard!
Anyway, one of the items on my mental shelf that seemed to really pop up a lot during this most recent general conference and many other places in recent months is the idea of God having a purpose and direction -- a plan -- for my life and for the lives of each of His children.
I'm sure most people have had the experience of something occurring that was not in their own "plans" for themselves. Often, these experiences are hard to confront and leave us wondering what went "wrong". A prime example for me happened after my second year of medical school. After over 4 years of intense effort working to get into medical school (I can't possibly remember the number of late nights and early mornings, not to mention Friday and Saturday nights spent studying instead of playing) and then after 2 more years of exceptionally demanding (and exceptionally expensive) coursework in medical school I faced a test that is often considered the most important test in the career of a doctor. This test is used by residency programs to determine if they will consider you as a candidate to train at their program; and while it is not the only factor they use, it is well known that it is almost always the single most important factor. Doing well on this test is paramount. Doing poorly will alter what career options are made available. Anyway, my "plan" was to ace this test and have any career I wanted available for the asking. What happened was the opposite. I did not do nearly as well as I had planned on. In fact, after all was said and done many of the doors I had expected to be thrown open and strewn with rose pedals and red carpets were in fact closed. I remember a sense of panic and dread that after all that time, all that effort and all that money, I would end up with only a few meager options that did not appeal to me as others effortlessly eased themselves into the careers I craved and had worked so hard and so long for. To say that I was distraught would be the grossest of understatements...
I use this example because it doesn't involve anyone else. I am the only character involved in the story. However, it is my experience that usually these kind of experiences -- the ones where we deviate from our "plans" for ourselves, involve others. Whether it be a friendship, a marriage or dating relationship, or a sibling-sibling relationship that deviates from our intended course or in fact, goes horribly wrong -- our relationships with others provide prime areas of our lives for things to go differently than planned. Perhaps it is because the Lord gives His children agency and allows us to make choices that can affect ourselves and others. Statistically speaking, the more people with agency involved, the more opportunity for choices to be made that cause deviation from our planned course for ourselves. Regardless, we all experience this derailment from our plans from time to time.
What I struggled with the most after the experience with the test was trying to understand how this could possibly be in my interest. How could having more limited options be a good thing? I believed then and still do that God wants me to learn as much as I can so that I can be used in any variety of ways He needs in order to help build his kingdom and fulfill whatever work he has for me. Wasn't this a move in the opposite direction? I think many of life's setbacks leave us feeling this way. I'm just betting that after Joseph in the book of Genesis was sold into Egypt and thrown into prison he likely felt similar feelings. How could any good possibly come of this setback? And what grated all the more was hearing over and over from well-intentioned people, "God has a plan for you and everything will turn out OK". In the midst of my trial and frustration this sounded trite. I had worked and sweated and bled and prayed for this thing and it was not happening (I refer specifically to the test, but more broadly to anything that we have poured our hearts into only to have it go poorly in our estimation). I admit that it was very hard to feel like God had a plan and that everything was going to turn out OK. Under such circumstances I think it is easy to feel like you must have done something wrong or missed some important step (otherwise things would be working out the way you expected…right?)
As I've pulled this particular item off the shelf over and over and thought long and hard about it (and I can't pretend that in a few instances the Lord didn't just use a good friend being very blunt and direct to circumvent my density) what I've realized is that the Lord's plan for us -- his overarching purpose -- is our eternal life and salvation. He does have a plan for us, but the purpose of that plan is much larger in scope than our own little plans for our lives. The course of God's plan for us will likely differ from what we expect or what we think should happen. For example, if getting accepted to Harvard's MBA program is part of what is essential for us to have the opportunity to gain eternal life, it will happen…If getting called to an exotic far-away mission field is essential for our chance to gain eternal life, it will happen…If getting married before the age of 30 (or getting married at all in this life) is an essential part of the path toward eternal life, it will happen. If these things, or any infinite number of other scenarios that feel so so so important to us in the here and now are an essential part of God's plan to provide us the opportunity for eternal life, they will happen. If they are not an essential part, they may or may not happen. What we can rest assured of is that what needs to happen for us to have the opportunity for eternal life will be able to happen if we do our best and let it.
Some of the unexpected or unwanted twists of my life (which are almost without exception difficult at the time) now make sense in retrospect. I can now see why things needed to go the way they did, even though at the time it felt like an unmitigated disaster. Admittedly, other things still don't make sense -- I'm still trying to understand why my work, sweat, blood, tears and prayers did not result in what I wanted…why the Lord has lead my life in the way it has gone…(why did that relationship end? Why have my efforts gone unrecognized by the people who I've tried to love/impress/serve/work for?)…Having said that though, there are things that have become clearer with time (for example, Rehab medicine is a field I love and that will ultimately be very conducive to a good family life and life of service in the Lord's kingdom, but I never would have even thought of it as a possibility if my test score was high enough to get into that ultra-competitive surgical sub-specialty I coveted. I would have gone into that surgical field without a second thought and missed this career that I enjoy so much...)
An often quoted scripture is Romans 8:28, "All things work together for good to them that love God." As I kind of mentioned above, and to my shame, there have been times (and I still struggle with this feeling when things feel like they are spinning out of control) that this verse has felt simplistic. It is easy to feel this way when things are not going as anticipated -- you failed an important test, a person you love ends your relationship, you don't like your job (or you can't seem to find one at all), you're fighting with family or friends or you feel you have been betrayed and your trust is broken -- at these times it is hard to see how things are working out for your good. The challenge, I think, is to remember that the Lord's purpose and his plan, in other words, "His work and His glory" is the eternal life and salvation of his children (Moses 1:39). President Packer compared life to a 3 act plan. This life is the 2nd act, and the next life is the 3rd act when all things tie together and conclude in our very own "happily ever after". Parts of the 2nd act don't make any sense unless you know about the story in the 1st and 3rd acts. God is the director who knows the script from beginning to end. From His perspective the parts of the 2nd act that don't make sense to us, do make sense to Him. I think it is a knowledge of this principle that allowed Moroni (in his loneliness and solitude and after witnessing the complete destruction of his people) to write about "the grace of God" and being made "perfect in Christ" (Moroni 10:32-33).
Returning to Joseph in Egypt (or Alma and Amulek, or the sons of Mosiah, or the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's if you prefer, or any number of scriptural/church history figures), it ultimately became clear why he needed to spend those years in an Egyptian prison. Joseph received an answer in his lifetime. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes, I'm convinced, those answers do not come until the next life -- but I believe they will come eventually! A close friend shared a song with me when I was in the middle of several simultaneous deviations from the path I had planned for myself (that is another point I'm convinced of: rarely do deviations from the path we have planned for ourselves happen one at a time. Rather, several areas of our lives seem to fly apart all at once…or maybe its just me…who knows...) Anyway, I thought it was a beautiful song and sums up a lot of my thoughts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwNibdCN8sQ).
Anyway, on that note I'll finish up. I am actually now post-call (somewhere in the middle of writing all this my call night became much busier and I had to go put out a bunch of "fires" and now it is the next afternoon and I'm going to try and take a nap before church starts). For anyone crazy enough to have read to the end of this, thanks for enduring another self-therapy session! I wish you all the best!
-Eric
If I was forced to choose between the two, I'd go for the quiet because at least that way, you can feel confident that none of your patients are actively trying to die on you. Quiet, however, does have its downsides. You are all alone in the hospital. All of the fellow residents who are your day-to-day social life are off enjoying their brief time away from work and you are just sitting there waiting to put out the next "fire" as we like to call the little (or not so little) emergencies that pop up throughout the day. The clock seems to enter some kind of relativistic time warp and slows down to an impossibly slow rate and the sound of yourself humming amplifies and starts to ring in your head!
Anyway, I'm on call right now and it is quiet. I should probably spend the time reading and studying, but I'm just not in the mood right now. I want a mental escape from medicine for a few minutes, so I figured I'd see how far I can get into another "installment".
As far as actual news, there is very little to report. I am on an inpatient rehab rotation. As I was telling my parents in a brief phone conversation last night (the first in almost 2 weeks…sorry!), I enjoy the content of this rotation. It is a nice mixture of basic internal medicine and rehab specific medicine, and is very applicable to my future career. But while I enjoy the content of this rotation, the execution of it can be frustrating. Medicare and to a lesser extent, private insurance companies create a LOT of busy work that gets dumped onto residents. The hours are long and largely spent documenting, documenting, documenting. A 5 minute conversation and exam with a patient takes 50 minutes of typing at a computer to document all of the bits and pieces that are required for reimbursement from the government and insurance companies…kind of silly if you ask me…Anyway, besides the copious note-writing, I really like what I'm doing and what I'm learning. I get more confident each day that I chose the right field and I'm very happy to be able to say that.
So, with that very short news update, I'll turn my attention to another "mental shelf" item that has been on my mind in recent weeks.
Not long ago, someone taught me the phrase "the doctrine of conference" which is the phenomenon that occurs when you listen to general conference, or sacrament meeting talks or whatever and the same theme seems to pop up everywhere. The talks themselves are rarely about that actual subject but somehow that is all you end up hearing…you know what I'm talking about! I'm pretty sure most of us have had something at least similar to this happen. It's always fun for me to go back and re-read the talks if possible because so rarely do they deal with the theme I got out of them originally, and it just makes me realize all the more that I must have needed to hear whatever it was that I heard!
Anyway, one of the items on my mental shelf that seemed to really pop up a lot during this most recent general conference and many other places in recent months is the idea of God having a purpose and direction -- a plan -- for my life and for the lives of each of His children.
I'm sure most people have had the experience of something occurring that was not in their own "plans" for themselves. Often, these experiences are hard to confront and leave us wondering what went "wrong". A prime example for me happened after my second year of medical school. After over 4 years of intense effort working to get into medical school (I can't possibly remember the number of late nights and early mornings, not to mention Friday and Saturday nights spent studying instead of playing) and then after 2 more years of exceptionally demanding (and exceptionally expensive) coursework in medical school I faced a test that is often considered the most important test in the career of a doctor. This test is used by residency programs to determine if they will consider you as a candidate to train at their program; and while it is not the only factor they use, it is well known that it is almost always the single most important factor. Doing well on this test is paramount. Doing poorly will alter what career options are made available. Anyway, my "plan" was to ace this test and have any career I wanted available for the asking. What happened was the opposite. I did not do nearly as well as I had planned on. In fact, after all was said and done many of the doors I had expected to be thrown open and strewn with rose pedals and red carpets were in fact closed. I remember a sense of panic and dread that after all that time, all that effort and all that money, I would end up with only a few meager options that did not appeal to me as others effortlessly eased themselves into the careers I craved and had worked so hard and so long for. To say that I was distraught would be the grossest of understatements...
I use this example because it doesn't involve anyone else. I am the only character involved in the story. However, it is my experience that usually these kind of experiences -- the ones where we deviate from our "plans" for ourselves, involve others. Whether it be a friendship, a marriage or dating relationship, or a sibling-sibling relationship that deviates from our intended course or in fact, goes horribly wrong -- our relationships with others provide prime areas of our lives for things to go differently than planned. Perhaps it is because the Lord gives His children agency and allows us to make choices that can affect ourselves and others. Statistically speaking, the more people with agency involved, the more opportunity for choices to be made that cause deviation from our planned course for ourselves. Regardless, we all experience this derailment from our plans from time to time.
What I struggled with the most after the experience with the test was trying to understand how this could possibly be in my interest. How could having more limited options be a good thing? I believed then and still do that God wants me to learn as much as I can so that I can be used in any variety of ways He needs in order to help build his kingdom and fulfill whatever work he has for me. Wasn't this a move in the opposite direction? I think many of life's setbacks leave us feeling this way. I'm just betting that after Joseph in the book of Genesis was sold into Egypt and thrown into prison he likely felt similar feelings. How could any good possibly come of this setback? And what grated all the more was hearing over and over from well-intentioned people, "God has a plan for you and everything will turn out OK". In the midst of my trial and frustration this sounded trite. I had worked and sweated and bled and prayed for this thing and it was not happening (I refer specifically to the test, but more broadly to anything that we have poured our hearts into only to have it go poorly in our estimation). I admit that it was very hard to feel like God had a plan and that everything was going to turn out OK. Under such circumstances I think it is easy to feel like you must have done something wrong or missed some important step (otherwise things would be working out the way you expected…right?)
As I've pulled this particular item off the shelf over and over and thought long and hard about it (and I can't pretend that in a few instances the Lord didn't just use a good friend being very blunt and direct to circumvent my density) what I've realized is that the Lord's plan for us -- his overarching purpose -- is our eternal life and salvation. He does have a plan for us, but the purpose of that plan is much larger in scope than our own little plans for our lives. The course of God's plan for us will likely differ from what we expect or what we think should happen. For example, if getting accepted to Harvard's MBA program is part of what is essential for us to have the opportunity to gain eternal life, it will happen…If getting called to an exotic far-away mission field is essential for our chance to gain eternal life, it will happen…If getting married before the age of 30 (or getting married at all in this life) is an essential part of the path toward eternal life, it will happen. If these things, or any infinite number of other scenarios that feel so so so important to us in the here and now are an essential part of God's plan to provide us the opportunity for eternal life, they will happen. If they are not an essential part, they may or may not happen. What we can rest assured of is that what needs to happen for us to have the opportunity for eternal life will be able to happen if we do our best and let it.
Some of the unexpected or unwanted twists of my life (which are almost without exception difficult at the time) now make sense in retrospect. I can now see why things needed to go the way they did, even though at the time it felt like an unmitigated disaster. Admittedly, other things still don't make sense -- I'm still trying to understand why my work, sweat, blood, tears and prayers did not result in what I wanted…why the Lord has lead my life in the way it has gone…(why did that relationship end? Why have my efforts gone unrecognized by the people who I've tried to love/impress/serve/work for?)…Having said that though, there are things that have become clearer with time (for example, Rehab medicine is a field I love and that will ultimately be very conducive to a good family life and life of service in the Lord's kingdom, but I never would have even thought of it as a possibility if my test score was high enough to get into that ultra-competitive surgical sub-specialty I coveted. I would have gone into that surgical field without a second thought and missed this career that I enjoy so much...)
An often quoted scripture is Romans 8:28, "All things work together for good to them that love God." As I kind of mentioned above, and to my shame, there have been times (and I still struggle with this feeling when things feel like they are spinning out of control) that this verse has felt simplistic. It is easy to feel this way when things are not going as anticipated -- you failed an important test, a person you love ends your relationship, you don't like your job (or you can't seem to find one at all), you're fighting with family or friends or you feel you have been betrayed and your trust is broken -- at these times it is hard to see how things are working out for your good. The challenge, I think, is to remember that the Lord's purpose and his plan, in other words, "His work and His glory" is the eternal life and salvation of his children (Moses 1:39). President Packer compared life to a 3 act plan. This life is the 2nd act, and the next life is the 3rd act when all things tie together and conclude in our very own "happily ever after". Parts of the 2nd act don't make any sense unless you know about the story in the 1st and 3rd acts. God is the director who knows the script from beginning to end. From His perspective the parts of the 2nd act that don't make sense to us, do make sense to Him. I think it is a knowledge of this principle that allowed Moroni (in his loneliness and solitude and after witnessing the complete destruction of his people) to write about "the grace of God" and being made "perfect in Christ" (Moroni 10:32-33).
Returning to Joseph in Egypt (or Alma and Amulek, or the sons of Mosiah, or the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's if you prefer, or any number of scriptural/church history figures), it ultimately became clear why he needed to spend those years in an Egyptian prison. Joseph received an answer in his lifetime. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes, I'm convinced, those answers do not come until the next life -- but I believe they will come eventually! A close friend shared a song with me when I was in the middle of several simultaneous deviations from the path I had planned for myself (that is another point I'm convinced of: rarely do deviations from the path we have planned for ourselves happen one at a time. Rather, several areas of our lives seem to fly apart all at once…or maybe its just me…who knows...) Anyway, I thought it was a beautiful song and sums up a lot of my thoughts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwNibdCN8sQ).
Anyway, on that note I'll finish up. I am actually now post-call (somewhere in the middle of writing all this my call night became much busier and I had to go put out a bunch of "fires" and now it is the next afternoon and I'm going to try and take a nap before church starts). For anyone crazy enough to have read to the end of this, thanks for enduring another self-therapy session! I wish you all the best!
-Eric
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
09/21/2010 - The "Mental Shelf"
It has again been a long time and much has happened since my last installment (though I'm not sure something as infrequent as my posts can even be called "installments" which denotes some degree of regularity). Regardless, the catharsis that writing provides has prompted me to sit down and plug away at an update. I wonder sometimes if part of why writing in a "journal" (these posts are as close as I get) is so strongly encouraged is because it provides a medium for calming and healing turbulent emotions and thoughts…it's an interesting thought...
Anyway, let me first reiterate one of the big changes in my life: I am no longer a Wisconsin resident…
Part of me was ready for this change (the part of me that hates being cold all the time in particular. Also the part of me that enjoys the excitement of newness!) Having said that however, a part of me got left in that frozen northern tundra…I made some of those rare friends -- you know the type -- the ones you will still feel close to even after months/years of not seeing them. The ones who seem to glow with goodness and yet don't realize it (part of what contributes to their glowing, I'm sure). The ones who, no matter how much you try and tell them, will never really "get" how much they influenced you….those kind of friends! For four years they helped fill gaps that I am just now beginning to understand a little better. My years in Wisconsin remind me of my years as a missionary because both were far away from family and things that felt familiar. Both were times of "concentrated life and learning" (I don't know how to phrase it any better) that felt like 10 or 20 years of normal life experience crammed into 2 or 4 years respectively. And both were periods that in retrospect I can look back on and find strength in…
In late June after a wonderful visit from my parents, grandparents and Lance and after finishing a forensic pathology rotation I hit the road in my trusty Subaru -- that I have aptly named "Rocinante" after the horse in Don Quixote (I think it is a particularly fitting name since to the world's view Rocinante was a ramshackle glue-factory animal but Don Quixote saw him as a brave and valiant stallion who stalwartly took him around on his somewhat misguided quests to fight windmills and the such…I think it is just a name that fits…) Anyway, my brave little car and I hit the road for south Texas! Along the road I got to spend a night in Nauvoo, a night in Tulsa with some relatives and a night in Dallas with friends! Upon arrival I immediately set to work moving my stuff in, finding my way around and starting residency!
I began July 1st on a Neurosurgery rotation. I had a fair amount of anxiety about being so brand new and starting on something like neurosurgery but with the exception of one very long, tense night working to keep a patient alive (we were successful by the way) it was a really nice rotation and I learned a lot. August and now September have been a geriatrics rotation which have also been nice and allowed some quick weekend trips up to Utah to see and meet people. Next month will be on the acute inpatient rehab unit which will be very applicable to my future career (despite having the reputation of really long arduous hours). I look forward to things that are heading down the residency pipeline!
Now, as I mentioned above, the major reason I started writing this post after so long of a break is for the cathartic effect writing has on me. Somehow taking the time to organize my thoughts enough to write them down has a therapeutic effect on me and helps me to solidify certain concepts or ideas in my mind in a way nothing else does. With that said, I'm about to get a lot more somber, so for anyone who is not in the mood for somber feel free to stop now and watch this hilarious video of the funniest dog of all time! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LzMAXqu8qU)
Sometimes I like to picture what I call the "mental shelf". In my mind I imagine an empty room with a shelf attached to one wall. On this shelf are a variety of strange objects of different shapes, sizes, colors, ages, etc. Each of these objects represents an idea that I just don't really understand. From time to time I will go in this room and take one of the objects off the shelf, brush away the dust and examine it. This is akin to thinking about an idea or topic that I don't really understand for a while. Most commonly I am forced to place the object back on the shelf, no better understood than when I picked the item up and I leave it to be revisited at some future day. Occasionally however, when I am turning this object over and over in my hands a spark of understanding comes to me and when I put the object back on the shelf I understand it just a tiny bit better than when I started. Over the months and years these sparks accumulate and my understanding morphs over time. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand these topics but I am confident that my understanding today is better developed than it was last week and it will be better developed next week than it is now if I keep visiting the objects on the shelf and spend time mulling them over. I do find that these "objects" (aka: thoughts or ideas) are generally among the big tough ones that don't have easy answers and if they do have answers they are probably different for every person...
Anyway, one of these "objects" that I have been visiting from time to time in my thoughts over the last year or so has been the idea of how Christ can mend that which is broken. At first I didn't even think of it in exactly those words or terms, but over time I have come to understand that the things I was thinking about could be boiled down to the idea of Christ's power to mend that which is broken. What I have come to understand is that each of us at any given moment have a part of us that feel broken. This feeling can be because of a loss we have suffered, or from loneliness, or depression, or from frustration at our circumstances or from feeling we have been betrayed or had our trust broken. It can come when we seem to fall into the same stupid sins over and over again. It can come in matters of family, friends, work (or lack thereof) and relationships. It can certainly come in matters of dating and the heart…I think we all have these parts of us that feel fractured and broken and we wonder if they will ever be able to be fixed…
Growing up and well into my adult years I would hear the phrase "Christ understands your pain and sorrows because he felt them all" or something along those lines, and for a long time I didn't fully understand how that was important. I believed it and felt that it was true. I just didn't understand how that was helpful. Frankly, it made me feel bad because I was miserable and why would I want anyone to feel the same way I did, even if it was the Son of God? It wasn't until I was well into what is generally considered "adulthood" (debatable in my case, I know) that I finally came to understand why it was important that Christ felt all the same pains I feel. What I realized is that the phrase I heard growing up is incomplete. It is the first half of an idea, but it is not the whole idea. If I were to rewrite the phrase it would go something like this: "Christ understands your pain because he felt it too, and that is important because he descended below these things and then overcame them, and now he can show you the way out!"
Elder Holland gave a talk in the April 2006 conference that has become one of my favorites. In it he said this:
"The Savior reminds us that He has “graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands.” Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way."
Now, I'm not saying that healing the parts of us that are broken will be a painless process, and I'm not saying it happens overnight. Just like setting and casting a broken bone is painful, and healing takes time; pulling our broken pieces together can hurt and will likely not happen on our timetable. What I believe however, is that healing can come. Whether it is my heart that is broken or my trust or my confidence, these things can be healed through the power of Christ's atonement.
The details are not important but I have had opportunity to put this mending power to the test in recent weeks probably as rigorously as I have ever had need of it. It has been hard and painful, and I'd be lying if I said that I felt completely repaired. I have some relatively good moments and I have some not as good moments. My heart and emotions often still feel like they are in shattered little pieces. But what I find comfort in is the knowledge that things can get better if I allow Christ's atonement to work in my life. Another "mental shelf" idea that relates is the idea of exactly what the atonement does for us and how to make it active in our lives. I have gone on quite long enough and I will not delve into these topics other than to say that I have learned that the atonement is not only for cleansing of sin (it is for that, certainly) but it does more. Among other things It "binds up the brokenhearted" (Isaiah 61:1) and we make it active in our life when we are obedient to commandments and when we live covenants we have made.
I think it is part of the mortal experience to always have some part of us that feels broken -- I think that is part of what "opposition in all things" means -- but I think that when we are yolked to Christ, those broken parts don't stay broken. They are repaired and made stronger than they were to begin with. I think this is part of what Christ meant when he said he would make weak things become strong unto us (Ether 12:27). The repaired/strengthened parts will always be replaced with new broken pieces but as we continue to yolk ourselves to Christ those parts will be repaired and strengthened and the whole repeating cycle results in a new and stronger and more Christ-like person! Admittedly, some breaks take longer to heal than others, but I think that is part of why the Atonement needed to be infinite! Because no matter how bad the break is, no matter how large a part of us is broken, and no matter how feeble and inadequate our best attempts may be; the atonement will fill in where we fall short, it will repair the broken piece no matter how large it is!
Anyway, I'm going to quit rambling now. I feel bad for making anyone strong enough to have read all the way to then end here be a part of my self-therapy session…sorry!
Best wishes to everyone and I hope to catch up sometime soon!
-Eric
Anyway, let me first reiterate one of the big changes in my life: I am no longer a Wisconsin resident…
Part of me was ready for this change (the part of me that hates being cold all the time in particular. Also the part of me that enjoys the excitement of newness!) Having said that however, a part of me got left in that frozen northern tundra…I made some of those rare friends -- you know the type -- the ones you will still feel close to even after months/years of not seeing them. The ones who seem to glow with goodness and yet don't realize it (part of what contributes to their glowing, I'm sure). The ones who, no matter how much you try and tell them, will never really "get" how much they influenced you….those kind of friends! For four years they helped fill gaps that I am just now beginning to understand a little better. My years in Wisconsin remind me of my years as a missionary because both were far away from family and things that felt familiar. Both were times of "concentrated life and learning" (I don't know how to phrase it any better) that felt like 10 or 20 years of normal life experience crammed into 2 or 4 years respectively. And both were periods that in retrospect I can look back on and find strength in…
In late June after a wonderful visit from my parents, grandparents and Lance and after finishing a forensic pathology rotation I hit the road in my trusty Subaru -- that I have aptly named "Rocinante" after the horse in Don Quixote (I think it is a particularly fitting name since to the world's view Rocinante was a ramshackle glue-factory animal but Don Quixote saw him as a brave and valiant stallion who stalwartly took him around on his somewhat misguided quests to fight windmills and the such…I think it is just a name that fits…) Anyway, my brave little car and I hit the road for south Texas! Along the road I got to spend a night in Nauvoo, a night in Tulsa with some relatives and a night in Dallas with friends! Upon arrival I immediately set to work moving my stuff in, finding my way around and starting residency!
I began July 1st on a Neurosurgery rotation. I had a fair amount of anxiety about being so brand new and starting on something like neurosurgery but with the exception of one very long, tense night working to keep a patient alive (we were successful by the way) it was a really nice rotation and I learned a lot. August and now September have been a geriatrics rotation which have also been nice and allowed some quick weekend trips up to Utah to see and meet people. Next month will be on the acute inpatient rehab unit which will be very applicable to my future career (despite having the reputation of really long arduous hours). I look forward to things that are heading down the residency pipeline!
Now, as I mentioned above, the major reason I started writing this post after so long of a break is for the cathartic effect writing has on me. Somehow taking the time to organize my thoughts enough to write them down has a therapeutic effect on me and helps me to solidify certain concepts or ideas in my mind in a way nothing else does. With that said, I'm about to get a lot more somber, so for anyone who is not in the mood for somber feel free to stop now and watch this hilarious video of the funniest dog of all time! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LzMAXqu8qU)
Sometimes I like to picture what I call the "mental shelf". In my mind I imagine an empty room with a shelf attached to one wall. On this shelf are a variety of strange objects of different shapes, sizes, colors, ages, etc. Each of these objects represents an idea that I just don't really understand. From time to time I will go in this room and take one of the objects off the shelf, brush away the dust and examine it. This is akin to thinking about an idea or topic that I don't really understand for a while. Most commonly I am forced to place the object back on the shelf, no better understood than when I picked the item up and I leave it to be revisited at some future day. Occasionally however, when I am turning this object over and over in my hands a spark of understanding comes to me and when I put the object back on the shelf I understand it just a tiny bit better than when I started. Over the months and years these sparks accumulate and my understanding morphs over time. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand these topics but I am confident that my understanding today is better developed than it was last week and it will be better developed next week than it is now if I keep visiting the objects on the shelf and spend time mulling them over. I do find that these "objects" (aka: thoughts or ideas) are generally among the big tough ones that don't have easy answers and if they do have answers they are probably different for every person...
Anyway, one of these "objects" that I have been visiting from time to time in my thoughts over the last year or so has been the idea of how Christ can mend that which is broken. At first I didn't even think of it in exactly those words or terms, but over time I have come to understand that the things I was thinking about could be boiled down to the idea of Christ's power to mend that which is broken. What I have come to understand is that each of us at any given moment have a part of us that feel broken. This feeling can be because of a loss we have suffered, or from loneliness, or depression, or from frustration at our circumstances or from feeling we have been betrayed or had our trust broken. It can come when we seem to fall into the same stupid sins over and over again. It can come in matters of family, friends, work (or lack thereof) and relationships. It can certainly come in matters of dating and the heart…I think we all have these parts of us that feel fractured and broken and we wonder if they will ever be able to be fixed…
Growing up and well into my adult years I would hear the phrase "Christ understands your pain and sorrows because he felt them all" or something along those lines, and for a long time I didn't fully understand how that was important. I believed it and felt that it was true. I just didn't understand how that was helpful. Frankly, it made me feel bad because I was miserable and why would I want anyone to feel the same way I did, even if it was the Son of God? It wasn't until I was well into what is generally considered "adulthood" (debatable in my case, I know) that I finally came to understand why it was important that Christ felt all the same pains I feel. What I realized is that the phrase I heard growing up is incomplete. It is the first half of an idea, but it is not the whole idea. If I were to rewrite the phrase it would go something like this: "Christ understands your pain because he felt it too, and that is important because he descended below these things and then overcame them, and now he can show you the way out!"
Elder Holland gave a talk in the April 2006 conference that has become one of my favorites. In it he said this:
"The Savior reminds us that He has “graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands.” Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way."
Now, I'm not saying that healing the parts of us that are broken will be a painless process, and I'm not saying it happens overnight. Just like setting and casting a broken bone is painful, and healing takes time; pulling our broken pieces together can hurt and will likely not happen on our timetable. What I believe however, is that healing can come. Whether it is my heart that is broken or my trust or my confidence, these things can be healed through the power of Christ's atonement.
The details are not important but I have had opportunity to put this mending power to the test in recent weeks probably as rigorously as I have ever had need of it. It has been hard and painful, and I'd be lying if I said that I felt completely repaired. I have some relatively good moments and I have some not as good moments. My heart and emotions often still feel like they are in shattered little pieces. But what I find comfort in is the knowledge that things can get better if I allow Christ's atonement to work in my life. Another "mental shelf" idea that relates is the idea of exactly what the atonement does for us and how to make it active in our lives. I have gone on quite long enough and I will not delve into these topics other than to say that I have learned that the atonement is not only for cleansing of sin (it is for that, certainly) but it does more. Among other things It "binds up the brokenhearted" (Isaiah 61:1) and we make it active in our life when we are obedient to commandments and when we live covenants we have made.
I think it is part of the mortal experience to always have some part of us that feels broken -- I think that is part of what "opposition in all things" means -- but I think that when we are yolked to Christ, those broken parts don't stay broken. They are repaired and made stronger than they were to begin with. I think this is part of what Christ meant when he said he would make weak things become strong unto us (Ether 12:27). The repaired/strengthened parts will always be replaced with new broken pieces but as we continue to yolk ourselves to Christ those parts will be repaired and strengthened and the whole repeating cycle results in a new and stronger and more Christ-like person! Admittedly, some breaks take longer to heal than others, but I think that is part of why the Atonement needed to be infinite! Because no matter how bad the break is, no matter how large a part of us is broken, and no matter how feeble and inadequate our best attempts may be; the atonement will fill in where we fall short, it will repair the broken piece no matter how large it is!
Anyway, I'm going to quit rambling now. I feel bad for making anyone strong enough to have read all the way to then end here be a part of my self-therapy session…sorry!
Best wishes to everyone and I hope to catch up sometime soon!
-Eric
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Graduation Announcement
I didn't have the money or time to pull together a real graduation announcement.
This was my compromise...
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Alamo city or bust!
So, the results are in and I'm thrilled! I'll be spending the next 4 years in beautiful south Texas (San Antonio)!
It's a great program and a great city, and I couldn't be happier!
I've spent an embarrasing amount of time in the last few days browsing pictures and forums about San Antonio and here are just a few of the gems I've found.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Long Overdue! (3/17/2010)
Family & Friends,
So, time flies and a year has passed since my last substantive entry…I knew this would be a danger when I started this blog. Despite my best intentions I wax and wane in my journal keeping – always have. Since this blog doubles as my journal, I guess this is just me back at my old tricks!
I will inevitably miss important details pertaining to the last year, but here is a brief blow-by-blow of my last 12 months:
Our story left our “hero” (note the quotation marks) just finishing his first month of ambulatory medicine. Despite an awkward experience or two, my big take-home lesson from that month was that I enjoy outpatient medicine where your patients come and go home again after the visit (vs. inpatient, where the patients are all admitted to the hospital and stay for…well…who knows how long! Could be a day, could be until death do us part!)
I then completed a month of inpatient medicine, 2 months of surgery, and then 2 months of pediatrics polished off my 3rd year of medical school. Here is what I learned from these rotations
• I like procedures, I even like surgery, but I do NOT want to be a surgeon! Why? Because I don’t hate myself (present/future surgeons, don’t be mad at me. That was a joke…sort of…) Really, it is because I don’t want that kind of lifestyle until I’m 60+. Also, I learned that while I like procedures, I do not like procedures/surgeries that take more than 1-2 hours. I get board and my legs hurt. Also, I’m pretty sure Robert Louis Stevenson had a surgeon in mind when he wrote “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” because surgeons become different people when they get in the OR…seriously!
• Kids are cute and fun…but not when they are sick! And what is worse/more-cranky than a sick kid? Answer: a sick kid’s parent! I defiantly learned that being a pediatrician is for other people (bless their insane hearts!)
Around this time, I started to prepare my residency application. Here are a few highlights of what this entails:
• Writing a CV (which is a type of resume that we use in medicine. CV stands for “Curriculum Vitae” which is Latin for “make the shadow-box you built in 3rd grade sound like the cure for cancer, a clean-burning eco-friendly fuel that will replace oil, and an everybody-wins solution to the health care debate”
• Getting 150 letters of recommendation (really just 5…but it felt like 150). Here is how that process usually goes:
Eric: “Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation about what a wonderful student and human I am? Please make sure you include how well you know me and how you deeply wish that in another life you would have had a son as brilliant, motivated and hard-working as me.”
Attending: “Who are you and why are you in my way?”
• Writing a personal statement. This is a tricky one. Somehow you are expected to write about how incredible/amazing/talented/hard-working/good-looking/charming/well-rounded/environmentally-friendly/service-oriented you are. Also, you are expected to convey why you distain the thought of being compensated (with money) for being a doctor and why you would rather get paid in “warm fuzzy feelings” than receive a paycheck. (I exaggerate…but only a little!)
Shortly after all of my application preparation, I was fortunate to be able to drive to Utah and begin a 4 month stint at home with family! Here is how each of the 4 months broke down
• Month #1: I got to study about 8-9 hours a day and then take an 8 hour board exam. I think I have expressed my feelings about board exams in the past, and I will have many opportunities to do so in the future, so I will limit myself to saying that I’m glad it is done and that I passed just fine.
• Month #2: Infectious Disease rotation at the University of Utah hospital. Overall, this was a good rotation and I learned a lot. Also, I had my first few residency interviews (more on these later).
• Month #3: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation rotation at the University of Utah hospital. I LOVED it! Admittedly, this is my chosen field, and I may be a bit biased, but really, it was great! At the end of the month I spent a wonderful Christmas at home with my family!
• Month #4: A “vacation” month where I stacked most of my residency interviews. Really this month was spent traveling and living the life of a “road-warrior”….(if I never have to see an airport or rental car again, so help me)…on the bright side though, I did get to spend a few quality days in Virginia with Lance seeing that beautiful state and a few days in New York seeing all that is Manhattan island. At the end of the month I drove back to Wisconsin in time to start another inpatient medicine month.
Let me state right here that invariably my time in Utah went faster than I wanted or expected it to. I never get to see all the people I want to, and those I do see, I never get to see enough. Those of you I did see, I hope I’ll be seeing more of you soon (more on this later). Those of you I didn’t see, I also hope to see you sooner than later (time will tell)!
Let me take a quick tangent right here about residency interviews and what that experience was like. Imagine this: you receive an email saying something like “Congratulations, we at the University of [fill in the blank] would like to extend an offer to interview at our program”. You call them up, set a date and then hang up the phone. Suddenly you realize that you do not live in that state and that before you can interview there, you will need to get there. You jump on Travelocity.com and book some flights (the cheapest flights, of course, arrive at 1:30am and the airport is 25 miles away from the hospital). Then you realize that you do not know anyone who lives in that city, nor do you know the how to use the public transportation even if it was running at 1:30am. You get on Enterprise.com and rent a car (the cheapest car is a neon blue VW Bug that makes you feel like you are driving inside of a blueberry) and then go to Motel.com and rent the cheapest room you can find (it is at the Bates Motel and you can still see blood stains on the wall from the last unfortunate medical student who stayed there). After arriving at the city of question at 1:30am (did I mention the 7 hour layover in Harrisburg?) you and your trusty GPS navigate your way to the motel (there is, of course a blizzard going on outside), crash for a few hours and then navigate your way to the hospital where you begin the interviews.
Most interviewers are pretty cool and do not make the experience too uncomfortable, but every so often an interviewer just want to nail you to the wall with questions like “how do you think we should solve the health care crisis?” (there is NO RIGHT ANSWER to this question and no matter what you say, you are WRONG!)
After the interview you try to drive back to the airport but the battery in your GPS is dead and you forgot the charging cord. You take the “scenic route” through cities with names like “Cottonville” and “Manitowoc” until you finally must use the force (Star Wars was on the motel TV last night) to find you way back!
Finally you arrive back home just in time to wash your clothes, choose a new tie and drive to the airport again for the next interview. After a few of these little trips, another thought strikes you: I’m a poor student and don’t have any money to be doing all of this flying/car/hotels thing! You call your bank and ask for another loan….
****
After moving back to Wisconsin and reconnecting with my amazing peeps out here (love you guys!) I’ve done 2 months of inpatient medicine (again, not my favorite). Which brings me to today…the day before match day!
Match day is a time-honored tradition in medicine. Here is a simple way of visualizing it:
• I make a list of all the programs I interviewed at (#1 on my list is my favorite program, #2 was my second favorite program, etc.)
• The programs make a list of all the applicants they interviewed (#1 was their favorite interviewee, #2 is their second favorite, etc.)
• Both lists get submitted to the mysterious NRMP (National Residency Match Program) which I’m convinced is an ultra-secret organization kind of like the illuminati.
• On a given day in March, a computer somewhere in the depths of NRMP’s secret headquarters runs an algorithm trying to match both lists up as high as possible on both sides. I like to picture an evil computer kind of like the one from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL”)
• A few days after the evil computer has done its work, all the 4th year medical students in the country gather at their respective schools and get handed an envelope with the results of the match inside. Prior to this point we are not allowed to know the results of the match. It is kind of like receiving a mission call, except for instead of receiving a call to serve a 2 year religious mission, it is a 4 year residency position…
That brings me to tomorrow, which is match day! Yikes! Tomorrow sometime between 11am and 1pm I will find out where I will be living for the next 4 years! My first choice is to return to Utah (why I hope to be seeing all of you Utah peeps again soon). Programs in San Antonio, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York, Boise, and Richmond are also possibilities. Really, every program I interviewed at was good and I’ll be happy to end up at any of them, but a part of me is really hoping for Utah…
Anyway, that is probably enough out of me. Best wishes to all of you!
-Eric
So, time flies and a year has passed since my last substantive entry…I knew this would be a danger when I started this blog. Despite my best intentions I wax and wane in my journal keeping – always have. Since this blog doubles as my journal, I guess this is just me back at my old tricks!
I will inevitably miss important details pertaining to the last year, but here is a brief blow-by-blow of my last 12 months:
Our story left our “hero” (note the quotation marks) just finishing his first month of ambulatory medicine. Despite an awkward experience or two, my big take-home lesson from that month was that I enjoy outpatient medicine where your patients come and go home again after the visit (vs. inpatient, where the patients are all admitted to the hospital and stay for…well…who knows how long! Could be a day, could be until death do us part!)
I then completed a month of inpatient medicine, 2 months of surgery, and then 2 months of pediatrics polished off my 3rd year of medical school. Here is what I learned from these rotations
• I like procedures, I even like surgery, but I do NOT want to be a surgeon! Why? Because I don’t hate myself (present/future surgeons, don’t be mad at me. That was a joke…sort of…) Really, it is because I don’t want that kind of lifestyle until I’m 60+. Also, I learned that while I like procedures, I do not like procedures/surgeries that take more than 1-2 hours. I get board and my legs hurt. Also, I’m pretty sure Robert Louis Stevenson had a surgeon in mind when he wrote “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” because surgeons become different people when they get in the OR…seriously!
• Kids are cute and fun…but not when they are sick! And what is worse/more-cranky than a sick kid? Answer: a sick kid’s parent! I defiantly learned that being a pediatrician is for other people (bless their insane hearts!)
Around this time, I started to prepare my residency application. Here are a few highlights of what this entails:
• Writing a CV (which is a type of resume that we use in medicine. CV stands for “Curriculum Vitae” which is Latin for “make the shadow-box you built in 3rd grade sound like the cure for cancer, a clean-burning eco-friendly fuel that will replace oil, and an everybody-wins solution to the health care debate”
• Getting 150 letters of recommendation (really just 5…but it felt like 150). Here is how that process usually goes:
Eric: “Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation about what a wonderful student and human I am? Please make sure you include how well you know me and how you deeply wish that in another life you would have had a son as brilliant, motivated and hard-working as me.”
Attending: “Who are you and why are you in my way?”
• Writing a personal statement. This is a tricky one. Somehow you are expected to write about how incredible/amazing/talented/hard-working/good-looking/charming/well-rounded/environmentally-friendly/service-oriented you are. Also, you are expected to convey why you distain the thought of being compensated (with money) for being a doctor and why you would rather get paid in “warm fuzzy feelings” than receive a paycheck. (I exaggerate…but only a little!)
Shortly after all of my application preparation, I was fortunate to be able to drive to Utah and begin a 4 month stint at home with family! Here is how each of the 4 months broke down
• Month #1: I got to study about 8-9 hours a day and then take an 8 hour board exam. I think I have expressed my feelings about board exams in the past, and I will have many opportunities to do so in the future, so I will limit myself to saying that I’m glad it is done and that I passed just fine.
• Month #2: Infectious Disease rotation at the University of Utah hospital. Overall, this was a good rotation and I learned a lot. Also, I had my first few residency interviews (more on these later).
• Month #3: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation rotation at the University of Utah hospital. I LOVED it! Admittedly, this is my chosen field, and I may be a bit biased, but really, it was great! At the end of the month I spent a wonderful Christmas at home with my family!
• Month #4: A “vacation” month where I stacked most of my residency interviews. Really this month was spent traveling and living the life of a “road-warrior”….(if I never have to see an airport or rental car again, so help me)…on the bright side though, I did get to spend a few quality days in Virginia with Lance seeing that beautiful state and a few days in New York seeing all that is Manhattan island. At the end of the month I drove back to Wisconsin in time to start another inpatient medicine month.
Let me state right here that invariably my time in Utah went faster than I wanted or expected it to. I never get to see all the people I want to, and those I do see, I never get to see enough. Those of you I did see, I hope I’ll be seeing more of you soon (more on this later). Those of you I didn’t see, I also hope to see you sooner than later (time will tell)!
Let me take a quick tangent right here about residency interviews and what that experience was like. Imagine this: you receive an email saying something like “Congratulations, we at the University of [fill in the blank] would like to extend an offer to interview at our program”. You call them up, set a date and then hang up the phone. Suddenly you realize that you do not live in that state and that before you can interview there, you will need to get there. You jump on Travelocity.com and book some flights (the cheapest flights, of course, arrive at 1:30am and the airport is 25 miles away from the hospital). Then you realize that you do not know anyone who lives in that city, nor do you know the how to use the public transportation even if it was running at 1:30am. You get on Enterprise.com and rent a car (the cheapest car is a neon blue VW Bug that makes you feel like you are driving inside of a blueberry) and then go to Motel.com and rent the cheapest room you can find (it is at the Bates Motel and you can still see blood stains on the wall from the last unfortunate medical student who stayed there). After arriving at the city of question at 1:30am (did I mention the 7 hour layover in Harrisburg?) you and your trusty GPS navigate your way to the motel (there is, of course a blizzard going on outside), crash for a few hours and then navigate your way to the hospital where you begin the interviews.
Most interviewers are pretty cool and do not make the experience too uncomfortable, but every so often an interviewer just want to nail you to the wall with questions like “how do you think we should solve the health care crisis?” (there is NO RIGHT ANSWER to this question and no matter what you say, you are WRONG!)
After the interview you try to drive back to the airport but the battery in your GPS is dead and you forgot the charging cord. You take the “scenic route” through cities with names like “Cottonville” and “Manitowoc” until you finally must use the force (Star Wars was on the motel TV last night) to find you way back!
Finally you arrive back home just in time to wash your clothes, choose a new tie and drive to the airport again for the next interview. After a few of these little trips, another thought strikes you: I’m a poor student and don’t have any money to be doing all of this flying/car/hotels thing! You call your bank and ask for another loan….
****
After moving back to Wisconsin and reconnecting with my amazing peeps out here (love you guys!) I’ve done 2 months of inpatient medicine (again, not my favorite). Which brings me to today…the day before match day!
Match day is a time-honored tradition in medicine. Here is a simple way of visualizing it:
• I make a list of all the programs I interviewed at (#1 on my list is my favorite program, #2 was my second favorite program, etc.)
• The programs make a list of all the applicants they interviewed (#1 was their favorite interviewee, #2 is their second favorite, etc.)
• Both lists get submitted to the mysterious NRMP (National Residency Match Program) which I’m convinced is an ultra-secret organization kind of like the illuminati.
• On a given day in March, a computer somewhere in the depths of NRMP’s secret headquarters runs an algorithm trying to match both lists up as high as possible on both sides. I like to picture an evil computer kind of like the one from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL”)
• A few days after the evil computer has done its work, all the 4th year medical students in the country gather at their respective schools and get handed an envelope with the results of the match inside. Prior to this point we are not allowed to know the results of the match. It is kind of like receiving a mission call, except for instead of receiving a call to serve a 2 year religious mission, it is a 4 year residency position…
That brings me to tomorrow, which is match day! Yikes! Tomorrow sometime between 11am and 1pm I will find out where I will be living for the next 4 years! My first choice is to return to Utah (why I hope to be seeing all of you Utah peeps again soon). Programs in San Antonio, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York, Boise, and Richmond are also possibilities. Really, every program I interviewed at was good and I’ll be happy to end up at any of them, but a part of me is really hoping for Utah…
Anyway, that is probably enough out of me. Best wishes to all of you!
-Eric
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