Another academic year comes to a close this weekend. Tomorrow a fresh fleet of interns across the country will be starting their first days nervous and tremulous to be finally let loose on the wards. Although most of my classmates have walked out of th…
Residency Roast
Another academic year comes to a close this weekend. Tomorrow a fresh fleet of interns across the country will be starting their first days nervous and tremulous to be finally let loose on the wards. Although most of my classmates have walked out of the clinic for the last time, I and a number of my classmates have “mom time” to make up for maternity leave (which feels a little like a punishment for having a baby during residency, despite only taking a 5 week maternity leave….but I digress) so I’ll be around a few more weeks.
Our residency celebrates the end of each year with a large banquet to celebrate the new arrivals and to honor the graduating residents with awards, nice words, and roasts. The outgoing residents get roasted by the program director first, followed by another roast by the incoming chief residents. The outgoing chiefs roast the faculty, and everyone has a good laugh along with some good food and drinks.
As a graduate, I was able to bring a whole table full of family to the banquet this year. During cocktail hour I was able to show off Toddler as we mingled with my friends and coworkers and faculty and guests. I was honored to be able to receive an award as well as present a teaching award and was glad those close to me were able to make it.
I awaited the roasts with some trepidation. I felt I had a lot of potential – I’m a messy eater, a loud talker, a clumsy walker. My PD went first. When it was my turn, he poked fun at my small town (as he is originally from a neighboring small town to my own), my instant apologies whenever something even mildly inappropriate escaped my filter, and my overall “church lady” nature (I used to play church piano and work at a Catholic hospital so it was fitting). He did mention how pragmatic I was, to the point I would send my child away when I was on weeks of night float to my small town (my mom and sister cheered at this point seeing as that was who Toddler spent the most time with on those nights).
I instantly had a bit of a flashback and felt a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hated those weeks so much. I remember the first week of night float I had as a parent. I stressed Husband out so much trying to get us to cross paths for those 15 minutes before he had to leave for work and I was coming home and vice versa and losing sleep trying to spend minutes with my Baby. It was awful. It was nerve wracking and left me in tears. The next week I sent Baby to my parents. It was such a good logical solution. My Baby would get to spend time with his grandparents who lived out of town, and they coordinated things so my in-laws could see Baby too. My husband was less stressed trying to hurry home as fast as possible to I could see Baby for five minutes before heading to work. And I got to sleep. It worked so well we did it for pretty much every week I had of night float.
Logic didn’t stop the deep pit I would feel in my stomach as I handed off Baby each of those weeks. It felt like an essential part of me was getting ripped from my gut every time. I would do those hand offs and head off to the hospital to spend overnights alone isolated in my call room or being crushed by the pager. It was absolutely awful.
And even in the banquet hall, surrounded by those I love most and my co residents and members of my residency who I will miss dearly, surrounded by all the warm fuzzies from sharing memories and laughter together, I felt a remnant of that aching pain in the pit of my stomach. As I looked around the room and thought about all that I would miss about my program, I knew what I would be the happiest to leave behind.
I snuck into Toddler’s room that night when he was fast asleep. I watched him sleep with his face shoved against his crib mattress and his diapered butt up in the air. I thought about how grateful I am for my upcoming attending job – outpatient with low volume OB call – and thought about all the weekends and nights we would be able to spend together from here on out. I am so happy for the bonds he has formed with his grandparents and extended families from those weeks away, but am even happier that those weeks have finally come to an end.
With love,
Kicks
My ideal medical practice – I opened up shop!
House call doctor tools of the trade. I have since gotten another rolling bag.
Over the last few years I have slowly been inching toward establishing my own practice. And this January, I did it, I incorporated my practice, Healthy Home Pediatrics! It is a house call based concierge, or direct primary care, practice serving Washington, DC and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas.
In my first blog post as a new business owner, I wrote:
It feels so good to work hard for my own vision. For the last 5 years I have worked extremely hard for visions that were established by hospital administrators or the organizations that I worked for. Too often, these visions fell short of what I knew my colleagues and I were truly capable of and far short of what patients really wanted and needed.
During times like this, when I am venturing into the unknown, I often go back to one of my all time favorite books, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I have read this book countless times. In it, Coelho shares the story of a young shepherd boy who leaves home and goes in search of his dreams. Along the way he is tested and experiences both profound joy and deep disappointments. One of my favorite sections of the book shares a conversation with the boy, his heart, and the alchemist:
“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”
This is my dream. To practice medicine in the way that feels good to my heart, in a way that I know will help families and my community. To be unhindered by traditional systems such as hospital systems and clinic administrators. To collaborate directly with my patients and their families. To build sustainable relationships with families that help prevent disease and suffering. To be there for my patients when they need me.
Many thanks to KC and others for encouraging me and supporting me. A gentle nudge from her is what prompted this post. Even though it is scary, sharing such a personal detailed account on MiM, I want to share this new phase of my life because I have already received countless messages from colleagues, friends and family saying how much my business has inspired them to pursue their own dreams. I want to take you all on this new path with me. Let me know if there are particular topics about entrepreneurship and balancing work and life that you would like me to write about.
Thanks Mothers in Medicine for inspiring me!
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