02_06_30

cleaning up, starting fresh

I woke up today in a much-improved mood. I realized that I was letting one man's summer funk festival become my summer funk festival, and why should that happen? I don't even have summer funk festivals in the first place. Not a good habit to pick up just due to peer pressure. So what I've decided to do is just step back, chill out, and wait for him to do the same. I have plenty of things to occupy myself with in the meantime.

I just went through a surprisingly cathartic room-cleaning session in preparation for the start of my Sub-I tomorrow. And the reason it was cathartic is because I went against every shred of natural instinct in my body--I threw stuff away. A hoarder and saver by nature, my room was starting to look like those pictures they show in Psych lectures of the homes of people with the pack-rat variant of OCD, stacks of newspapers, old grocery bags, and miles upon miles of scrap paper piled high to the ceiling. But at some point, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to re-read all those journal articles I had saved, and even if I was, I could always print out a new copies or read them online. All those old patient notes? I was never going to reference them again. The patients had recovered, for chrissake. (Well, either that, or they were dead.) All those handout from lectures that I slept through? Didn't read them the first time, I was supposed to, and I sure didn't intend to start now. Presentations? Notecards? Hoarded gauze? I year's worth of paper trash in two gigantic garbage bags, out of my apartment and out of my life. Now that felt good.

Went to the hospital today to pick up my new patients--turns out that I only have one for now, though I'll probably accumulate more in the days to come. The service is apparently very light these days, with only eight patients total between three interns, two seniors, three medical students, and a Sub-I. It'll pick up, though, it always does.

I actually glad to be starting off light. Gives me a chance to figure out what the hell I'm doing. The idea of doing the work of an intern has be a little freaked out, to be honest. After a year of following people around, having much less responsibility, being told exactly what to do and where and when to do it, part of me almost feels as though I can't be trusted with the level of work that I'm supposed to be doing this month. I feel like I don't know enough. I feel like I'm not smart enough. I feel like a kid playing doctor. But I know that I must be ready, or else they wouldn't let me do all this in the first place.

But how odd it is to assume the role of a Pediatrician when one barely feels older than a teenage kid herself.

Michelle