Direction

As of last week, coinciding with the end of Family Med, I finished my first block of third year and am not 1/3rd finished with the year. It is really, really exciting to be moving on to a new rotation (especially after my less than stellar month) but I have to admit that I am really going to miss taking care of kids.

I loved inpatient peds and liked outpatient peds. The peds appointments in Family were by far the highlights of my day. People thought I was good at it and always commented how comfortable their kids seemed with me. I read to them and talked to them easily. With the notable exception of the teenage boys, who seemed to join together to form a united front against my attempts to get to know them or examine them, I got along with all the kids and almost all of their parents. What I am saying is that I could totally see myself doing peds, especially in a hospital setting.

On the other hand, however, I so often found myself feeling bitter that I was reading to someone else’s kid while someone else was looking after mine. This was partly the hours I worked on Family and my bitterness about that translated into the young patients “keeping me” from Colin, but I think that there is enough truth to that feeling that it warrants note. It is difficult to go to work everyday and spend all your energy worrying about other people’s children, as it tends to leave you without a lot of reserve to go home and play with your own precious and precocious little one. While I know I will miss the attitudes and playfulness of peds visits, I might be just as happy to reserve that playfulness for Colin.

On the third hand, it is certainly a relief to have an alternative to OB/GYN in case I decide that I don’t like that. I have invested so much in that very specific path that I have frequently worried about what I would do if I didn’t like my rotation. What if I feel the same way about OB as I did about Family? Would my prior interest supercede a bad experience?

Now, at least, I know I have a backup if I need one.

So many of my classmates are at the extremes: they either love everything or haven’t liked anything yet. I am glad to have a little direction.

I start surgery tomorrow and am nervous but very interested to see how I like it.