Walking throughout the Hospital
Hospitals with residency programs tend to be large, and residents are usually instructed to park in the most far-flung, inconvenient lots, so I have been walking a lot lately; 15,000 steps per day, on average. I am still getting used to the layout of the place, so I'll often walk in one direction for a bit, only to realize that I'm going the wrong way. So I turn around, and my Garmin logs the extra steps.
The pager, once just an inanimate object, without feelings, has become a serial harasser. I've daydreamed about filing a restraining order against it at the local court. Every time it shrieks, the strident sound tears at the middle of my chest - a deep, unquenchable affliction - and I recoil in trepidation at what the ensuing phone call might bring my way. More consults. I have yet to start the previous one. Busywork piles on. I become nauseous, beaten down, resigned to the heavy burden of constant rushing. When the day's work ends, there is no satisfying completion; just a momentary sigh, if that.
If I could just relax for just a minute, truly relax, the burden would not seem too large, and my output would become much better. But, for now, there is no peace; no end in sight. My surgical career could end after this year, or it could blossom. Worse yet, it could just stagnate. I utter the refrain, "I am lucky to be here," and I know that to be true, because I feel warm gratitude flushing over me as I say it.
---
When I traverse the hospital halls, I keep my head hung nice and low. I walk by patients, nurses, residents, fellows, attendings, and administrative staff. Sometimes I smile or nod. Mostly my face is fixed on the floor, looking nowhere in particular. I imagine that passersby must think I'm a rather sad sort, glancing vacantly into the distance like that, or looking so sensitive and morose. (I'm not). More likely, they do not think of me at all. Despite being just several feet away, they inhabit separate, closed-off worlds.
Pain bursts at the seams throughout a hospital. Lives are lost, families are torn, and basic abilities are taken away, wresting autonomy from proud, independent men and women. One day, a man has two legs, and the next he has one. After his amputation, he must navigate the world anew. He never knew what mighty gift he had before with his two legs. He never danced before, but that is all he can think of now, dreaming of dancing. That seems to be the nature of life-defining events; violent changes and sudden twists of fortune occur without bargaining or reason, leaving desperate, boggled, hapless human feelings permanently altered in their wake. Most never recover.
Then I flash back into the present moment: I'm alive. We are rounding with the attending surgeon, and he is having a 'high-level' discussion with a colleague. I know this to be true, because he looks at me and another resident and says so: "You two wouldn't get it. I can't talk to you two about this. It's over your head, because this is a high-level discussion." I suppress the urge to chuckle, not knowing which is more absurd: the idea that what he was saying is intellectually inaccessible, or the total lack of self-awareness one must have to utter such a clumsy statement. No harm was meant, I'm certain, and none was done.
Contrary to expectation, nothing that happens in a large academic medical center is ever personal. The hospital is a supercomputer churning numerous inputs, some of them human. Feelings - fear, grieving, hope - are incidental. It is no use being mad at a machine. Either way, I have things to do, steps to log, people to see, operations to learn with doing and repetition, doing and repetition, and so on.
The pager, once just an inanimate object, without feelings, has become a serial harasser. I've daydreamed about filing a restraining order against it at the local court. Every time it shrieks, the strident sound tears at the middle of my chest - a deep, unquenchable affliction - and I recoil in trepidation at what the ensuing phone call might bring my way. More consults. I have yet to start the previous one. Busywork piles on. I become nauseous, beaten down, resigned to the heavy burden of constant rushing. When the day's work ends, there is no satisfying completion; just a momentary sigh, if that.
If I could just relax for just a minute, truly relax, the burden would not seem too large, and my output would become much better. But, for now, there is no peace; no end in sight. My surgical career could end after this year, or it could blossom. Worse yet, it could just stagnate. I utter the refrain, "I am lucky to be here," and I know that to be true, because I feel warm gratitude flushing over me as I say it.
---
When I traverse the hospital halls, I keep my head hung nice and low. I walk by patients, nurses, residents, fellows, attendings, and administrative staff. Sometimes I smile or nod. Mostly my face is fixed on the floor, looking nowhere in particular. I imagine that passersby must think I'm a rather sad sort, glancing vacantly into the distance like that, or looking so sensitive and morose. (I'm not). More likely, they do not think of me at all. Despite being just several feet away, they inhabit separate, closed-off worlds.
Pain bursts at the seams throughout a hospital. Lives are lost, families are torn, and basic abilities are taken away, wresting autonomy from proud, independent men and women. One day, a man has two legs, and the next he has one. After his amputation, he must navigate the world anew. He never knew what mighty gift he had before with his two legs. He never danced before, but that is all he can think of now, dreaming of dancing. That seems to be the nature of life-defining events; violent changes and sudden twists of fortune occur without bargaining or reason, leaving desperate, boggled, hapless human feelings permanently altered in their wake. Most never recover.
Then I flash back into the present moment: I'm alive. We are rounding with the attending surgeon, and he is having a 'high-level' discussion with a colleague. I know this to be true, because he looks at me and another resident and says so: "You two wouldn't get it. I can't talk to you two about this. It's over your head, because this is a high-level discussion." I suppress the urge to chuckle, not knowing which is more absurd: the idea that what he was saying is intellectually inaccessible, or the total lack of self-awareness one must have to utter such a clumsy statement. No harm was meant, I'm certain, and none was done.
Contrary to expectation, nothing that happens in a large academic medical center is ever personal. The hospital is a supercomputer churning numerous inputs, some of them human. Feelings - fear, grieving, hope - are incidental. It is no use being mad at a machine. Either way, I have things to do, steps to log, people to see, operations to learn with doing and repetition, doing and repetition, and so on.
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