Well…after five and a half years of working in Meridian, Mississippi, I had my last clinic day yesterday. It was sad for me, very sad for my nurse, and very, very sad for some of our patients whom we’ve been taking care of for the entire time.
These sorts of transitions are always extremely difficult for so many people, but especially the patients. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a clinic again. It’s too heartbreaking to bring it to an end.
For the foreseeable future, I will only be treating patients sick enough to be in the hospital. No attachments… no heartbreak.
Below is a comment and response I got from a reader of the blog sometime ago. It has a bit to do with work-life “balance” and is somewhat relevant to my current transitioning state.
Reader comment/question:
“Hi, I enjoyed reading not only your post but your response to this particular question as well! When pursuing a field in medicine, how did you balance wanting to fulfil life and have relationships while staying focused to achieve the goal of going to medical school?”
My response:
“Thank you for your comment/question!
I did not have to do much balancing when I went to medical school. I entered medical school when I was 18 years old, so I was practically still an adolescent. I always wanted to study medicine so it was not a burden to be “stuck” in school for 5 years. I wasn’t married at the time and really had no major responsibilities but to study so that made it relatively easy.
Now that I am established as a doctor and have my own family (including an infant son since writing that post) I admit it is definitely challenging to have a balance. In fact there is no perfect balance in my opinion.
My comfort is always in remembering that I do my best. I am a perfectionist so I always want to get things done as well as possible and set very high standards for myself. However my best varies from day to day, especially with a baby in the picture now. Whenever I start to feel bad about something not turning out as I would have liked, I quickly remind myself that I did my best, and that helps me to get over it and quickly move on.
The one thing that keeps a doctor (and any other professional I guess) going is a true love for what you do. There are so many stupid things (rules/regulations/computer systems, etc) that get it the way every day that if I didn’t truly enjoy what I did, I would have switched professions a long time ago.
So my message to you Amonte, is to make sure you really want to do what you set out to do, know that there are challenges along the way, but stay focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. And if for some reason you find out later on, that what you set out to do is not what you really enjoy, then be bold and make a switch if that is what it will take to be happy versus miserable.”
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