Save some lives

I’m going to do something I tried really hard not to do. Blog about what I’ve been up to lately with nothing particular to say. Mainly because I have to (re)start somewhere. So here it is. What have I been doing? Working. A little bit of traveling. There was a lot of family time recently, I guess mainly due to Diwali. I’ve been reading a book that is really good and thoroughly engrossing, but so hard to read it sometimes actually hurts my head (Midnight’s Children). Working more. Not exercising but thinking about doing it a lot, and that takes up a good amount of time let me tell you.

Yes, so, I have mostly been working. I have been at my clinic now for 6 months, and while it has been an amazing experience, it has also been a lot more stressful than I had imagined it would be. As a resident and then in my first job after residency, I worked in the hospital taking care of children who were acutely ill. Something major had happened to them – injury, disease, surgery – and they were in the hospital to get over that more precarious phase of their illness until they were stable. So, for that position, I was happy if under my care the patients didn’t get seriously worse, or die. It’s morbid, I know, but if my patients stayed alive through my shift that was good. And if they got better, well, that was great. Either way, when I left, another doctor was tagged in and at least until my next shift it was someone else’s job to keep the patients alive.

This new job is different. I don’t worry about someone croaking on me, but that rather I’m going to miss something. You see, it’s not my job to make them better; it’s my job to prevent them from even getting sick. Or if there is some sickness brewing, that I am able to recognize it and take care of it before it becomes a major issue. It’s harder than it seems. And there is no one to tag in. It’s just me, my decisions, my recommendations, my knowledge and skill. In some ways that’s more stressful, I think. There’s a bigger weight on my shoulders now. And I’m still trying to figure out my boundaries. How much can I intervene? In the face of poverty and broken homes and language barriers, can the patients even follow my recommendations? I have a lot of knowledge about children’s physiology, but how can I apply it to the person sitting in front of me and his unique set of obstacles to good health. Indeed, it was easier in some ways to deal with the protocols of intensive hospital care than the nebulousness of primary care.

I have been working. I have been trying to actively avoid self reflection…am a little afraid of what I’ll come up with. Truth is, I see things that are hard to deal with. Bad things happen to poor children. And most of the time I can’t do much about it. Or at least it feels that way. Sometimes it’s better to not process what you see. Be scientific about it, not emotional. Sometimes it’s better to force yourself to be numb. Ok, maybe not better, but necessary. It’s necessary. It’s selfish.

Uh, that’s starting to border on self-reflection.

When I had night shifts in residency, I often would call my cousin as I walked to work just to chat a little about how our days were. At the end of the call, she would always say, “Have a good shift! Save some lives.”

That always made me feel good. Save some lives…I don’t know if I really can, but I’ll keep trying.