The End Of A More Difficult Chapter

    Now that surgery is over, I'm left with many lingering thoughts, some of which I'll discuss now, and others which I'll come back to at some other point. I'm feeling a bit burned out at this point, and like I mentioned before, I've never actually reconsidered going into medicine before this last two months. Ultimately, I think it's just a sign that surgery is not for me, and when I find what's right for me, I'll be re-inspired and reminded why I'm doing what I'm doing, or at least that's what I'm desperately hoping for.
     It's interesting because when I look back on my psych rotation, it, too, was emotionally hard on me at times, but for completely different reasons. On psych, the patient's stories were sad, and it got frustrating not being able to fix all the patient's problems, but connecting with the patients was a fun challenge. And as a med student, you were a valuable part of the team, and the team welcomed you and cared about your learning and well being. On surgery, most people don't give a shit about the med students, and instead of looking at med students as future fellow colleagues who are on their journey of training, they look at us like we're little idiots who aren't worth their time. On surgery, people have huge egos and mostly care about "knowing their shit" and looking good. They really don't care to spend any time with the patients, which might be the reason I feel so burned out. Spending time with patients is one thing that re-energizes me and gives me that "warm and fuzzy" feeling, and those feelings have been far and few in between on this rotation.  One day, when one of my fellow MS3s and I were tired of being in the OR, we decided to go up to our floor and do "social rounds" on all of the patients on our service.  We went around to each patient's room, just popped in to say "Hi, how are you doing?" and then went on our merry way.  One patient was feeling particularly down, because he had been in the hospital so long, so we sat down and chatted with him for a good 20 minutes.  It was really nice to give the patients some attention, because usually they don't get much after rounds are over.
    I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago when I was still bitter about my experience on trauma surgery, so now I'm feeling a little more optimistic about medicine after having an overall great experience on GI surgery.  Unfortunately, we just have this weekend to recharge before rotation 3, so I hope I can muster up the energy.  I start L&D for OB/Gyn this week, which I am really excited about.  I can't believe my time is finally here - time to really see if this is what I want.  I hope this is the rotation that re-inspires me.  I have a good feeling about this, so here we go!

BF and I had a BBQ to celebrate being done with 1/3 of our third year!

    ***Also, I did some much-needed retail therapy today and bought some new professional dresses and blouses.  :)  Hey... I deserved it after making it through 8 weeks of surgery, right?!