On a brighter note . . .

I think if surgery/critical care were a lifestyle specialty where I could be in California and travel to Asia occasionally, I’d TOTALLY do it. Its exciting, challenging, multifaceted and you really do get to say to yourself at the end of the day that you saved lives (Not true in most specialties).

My fallback plans are Anesthesia (where I would definitely get to do critical care but its also a specialty that appreciates and values good lifestyle), Urology, where everyone seems happy and the surgeries are cool. Medicine is looking more and more miserable and kinda painfully esoteric compared to the practicalities of surgery.

Liking surgery . . . or do i?

Last day (and night) on trauma surgery. My highlight today was talking to my patient Mr. T and his wife B, he was in a motorcycle crash that very nearly killed him and he was basically comatose last week, this week he is really recovering except for some minimal depression from being in the hospital. I gave him a pep talk, they talked about how nice it was to have me and complimented me, it felt very good to have played the role of the good doctor with the excellent bed side manner.

But that’s just it, in the end I think I’m a relativist. Its not that I have a “passion” for medicine. Its more that I feel very comfortable playing the role of the caring doctor. Do I really care about the patients? I dunno. I check up on them a lot, I hope they get better. But I am also really really glad to be outside the hospital and I groan at the thought of sacrificing the hours of my youth away at the hospital as a “resident”. Nonetheless, I think I empathize with patients, and to some extent that must mean taht somewhere deep down, I really do know a little what its like to be alone in a strange place. But on the other hand, I really do enjoy the compliments I get from patients, the compliments I get from my residents or attendings (my teachers). Those things also make me feel smart and with it. The added benefit of surgery too is that its almost exclusively an old boys club where you get to feel like one of the guys. That too is a role that I like to play.

So the real question that I have been asking myself for the last 3 years is, do I like playing the role of the compassionate physician at the beside who sacrifices his time and energy for the good of his patients or would I rather play the role of the coldhearted business person who doesn’t really help people but has time and money to spend on the material things in life?

Either way, I think shakespeare was right, life really is just a stage.