FIRST STEP: YOU HAVE TO WANT TO BE WELL TO DO WELL.“I had to think out of the box…” I did all the “right” things: went to college, graduate school and medical school, got married, had children. Still, when I looked at my career, things just didn…
Saturday AM coffee
The golden weekend begins
I wake up at 7:30 before my alarm. Approx 10 seconds of quiet uninterrupted bliss ensues when I realize I’m the only one awake. I can’t wait to make Saturday morning coffee. Then Dog demands to go outside.
While dog is outside, I read the last few page stories of the mystery I’ve been working on. Toddler fusses. I think “only ten pages to go” and Toddler falls miraculously back asleep and I finish my book.
Toddler fusses again. No coffee yet. Upstairs I find Toddler covered in poo including pieces in hair and hands. Apparently letting him eat that much pizza last night was a mistake. Toddler is protesting in the tub but much much cleaner 5 minutes later. I peek out in the hall for backup, turns out Husband heard the commotion and closed the bedroom door for a little longer sleep in. Hmph.
Toddler is dried out of bath. I sit him downstairs with yogurt and all is forgiven instantly. He smears his yogurt-covered hands through his recently bathed hair as I rinse the poo off of sheets, his pajamas, my pajamas and throw in the wash. Coffeemaker is finally started. I sit down with my own yogurt, which Toddler immediately realizes is different from his own and demands some. We share a little more yogurt.
Toddler gets spot cleaned, and I finally pour my cup of coffee.
It’s a beautiful day. Toddler loves being outside. Dog, coats, boots are collected and I spill a little of my precious “mom juice” on the floor. (“Mom juice” is my explanation to Toddler for coffee, wine, diet Mountain Dew, etc.). Clean floor. I go out thinking I might sit outside a sip some coffee, watch the commotion and listen to the radio. Coffee is a little colder but still tolerable. Spill some coffee on my old white worn fleece
I drag my chair to the sunny corner of the backyard, before realizing I have nowhere to put my coffee down. Coffee sits on little mud pile.Toddler decides he wants to rock with me on the chair, then by himself. The ball is thrown to dog. Sip. Throw. Sip. Throw. Toddler gets stuck in his plastic car. Extract Toddler. Sip. Run around yard with Toddler and Dog. Sip slightly warm coffee.
Sneak inside to top off cup with warm coffee and grab Kleenex for Toddler.
Back inside. Laundry gets done, clothes are packed and bathroom gets cleaned. Toddler finds the Swiffer cloths very interesting.. Now off to our parents for a weekend away.
I think I need another cup of coffee.
I can’t wait until I start my attending primary care clinic job this fall (yay!) and this becomes more of a typical than atypical Saturday (minus the poo).
Kicks
Interview Season
I hate interviews. I don’t know why I hate them so intensely or get so anxious, but whenever I have a job interview I develop “functional dyspepsia” (or as my mother would call it – a nervous tummy). I’ve started looking for my first real attending job. Someday I’d like to be a residency faculty member, but my university system has zero openings. I got one job interview for a residency faculty at an outside system that met all my criteria – within a couple hours drive from our families, a community that both my husband and I would enjoy living in, and an established residency with good mentoring support. It was a long interview day – beginning at 7:30 in the morning and dinner going past 8 pm that night – and I admittedly wasn’t my best self. It was my sixth week of a stretch with only 6 days off total (2 of which were used for Baby’s first birthday with our family back home), so I was tired. I underestimated how difficult it would be to schedule interviews around a resident’s schedule, and I would have preferred a later date to have recuperated a bit, but this was the only date that lined up for both me and the program.
I felt like I connected well with the current faculty and really felt like it was a good fit, except for one disappointing part over lunch. I was asked to give a lecture so they could evaluate my teaching style, and I was ready with flashy PowerPoint in hand with a topic I had done research on so I could actually answer a question or two. However, about 15 minutes into the lecture, I realized I was getting warm and lightheaded. The walls started closing in. I realized I was standing locking my legs in a warm suit jacket and hadn’t had much to drink for water. I started talking faster, thinking I could just get through it and no one would notice, but then one of the faculty members stood up and got me a glass of water and I noticed a bead of sweat dripping down my nose, so I finally quit faking it, apologized to the audience, and led the rest of the lecture and discussion from a seat in front of the podium. I was so embarrassed. I have had similar presyncopal vasovagal-y episodes before, but this was the first in front of a large group of people. Hopefully, I’ll get points for finishing regardless of my obvious physiologic distress…
The rest of the day went well but I still won’t hear from them for at least a month. The more I go to other interviews, the more unappealing pumping out RVUs day after day seems to be. I’ve had to stop myself numerous times from emailing the program director “Pick me! I think your program is exactly what I’ve been looking for! We want to live in your town FOREVER!”. But that probably looks bad so I haven’t. 😝 It’s my first choice for a job. I think I’m a decent candidate, but if someone swoops in with experience and/or someone from within their own system is interested, my chances probably aren’t looking too good.
I had another job interview at a community clinic within the past few days. It meets all my non-academic job wish list items except one. I’ve gotten more idealistic rather than less as medical school and residency have gone by, and I was really hoping to work in at least a somewhat underserved community – but this job is in the heart of a beautiful suburb which wasn’t what I was picturing for myself at all. The more I think about my list of what I want in a job, the more I realize that this is probably a very good fit for me, but there’s just a small hesitant piece of me that feels like a sell-out. Which is why I’m turning to you all for stories and advice – was there anything you had to sacrifice off your wish list to find a job you were still reasonably happy in?