One year from today, I will officially be finished with residency. Four years ago, I was an intern, freshly minted from medical school, nervous about prescribing tylenol to my patients without double checking their med list and past medical history and making sure that they were awake enough to take it without aspirating and are you sure they don’t have to be NPO in the morning???

Time flies, it’s true, but it also feels like I’ve been a resident forever. It’s been hard. There have been times, particularly my entire second year, where I wanted to quit. There were times when I was fighting depression and anxiety and hated my life, but I was too tired to do anything more than just sit on my couch. Times when I wanted to stage a mutiny. Times when the thought of dealing with particular patients would make me cry in frustration.

There have been patients who have died on my watch. Most died because of inevitability of mortality and their disease processes. There are a few who sit on my conscious, a worry that I might have through action or inaction contributed to their demise. I’ve fretted, I’ve worried. I’ve cried during rounds. I’ve told patients and family members about inescapable death and not cried. I’ve held hands with patients. I’ve stood in doors, impatient with the endless questioning, ready to move on to the next patient.

Over the last four years, I have had approximately 300 call nights, where I spent 24-30+ hours in the hospital. The majority of those, I had less than 4 hours of sleep. I can do 24 hours without a problem. It’s the remaining 6+ that kill me still. On call nights, I hate the pagers and I loath the ER. I think I always will.

I’ve written hundreds of histories, listened to a thousand stories of illness. I’ve auscultated over a thousand hearts and still could not tell you what a S3 gallop sounds like. I still hate gaping wounds and eye infections. I’m still terrible with names of muscles and their innervation, and well as anything related to heme-onc and rheumatology. I’m bad at daily studying (I still haven’t lost my natural tendency of procrastination), but love to find little bits of data and explore how to put a challenging puzzle together for a particular patient.

I’ve loved being a doctor. I’ve hated being a doctor. I’ve hated being a resident, treated like a high schooler, with the responsibilities of an adult. I’ve loved having support and backup in making decisions. I’m dreading the moment, a few years from now, when all decisions end with me.

One year more. Another year, another destiny, this never-ending road to Calvary. Or something like that. 😉

(And now off to study before bed… I’m trying to do better!)