Day 5: Changes

When you enter a hospital as a resident for the first time, your world changes. You become a child again - the environment is new, and you must learn quickly just to survive. Orientation is over, and I am on my second clinical day. Incisions have been made and closed. Just a month ago, I delivered food. It seems like ages.

Every place has its quirks and politics. I'm not much of a politician. My continued existence here is uncertain, as I am contracted for one year. It's a tryout. What happens after this year lays only slightly in my hands and is left mostly to the vagaries of fate. It is nice seeing fellow residents engaging in banter and enjoying their categorical positions, and I admit to being slightly envious that they have it all figured out. At the very least, they have job security.

The flood of emotions from one day to the next is overwhelming. On my first clinical day, I felt like I was back at home where I belonged, assisting in operations and acting as a doctor. After the second, I became more unsure. I have already explained to several inquiring persons - attending surgeons and residents - how I was once a resident elsewhere, and that I left it for health reasons. It isn't the most comfortable conversation, but I go through the motions of it. What bothers me most is my own insecurity about it all. Will the attendings take me seriously? Will I ever get back to the specialty that I lost? Am I good enough?

I want answers, but they are not coming fast enough. Now I know what other preliminary surgery residents felt - truly know - when I was a categorical subspecialty resident. Empathy has its limits. You can never fully know another person's pain until you are dealt the same blows. Of course, everybody has been nice and friendly with me, which disappoints me. It would be easier to take if they were mean. It would be external war, a boogeyman. Instead, this is self against self.

The unquiet mind wrestles with opposing forces, one telling it to think positively, act confidently, and to live in the present. The other whispers that I am not good enough now and never truly have been, that getting into medical school was a farce, and that the jig is up. You are not deceiving anybody, it says. Rationally, I know that the other voice should have no sway, but unfortunately it does.

For now, I have to settle into routine and learn to ignore the internal hostilities. There's ample time. There's never enough time. Stand still.