Seriously, how could I have known that goofing off, barely working, and having fun would help me so much in my career? Today, once again, was all about hablaring. My newest patient is a 16-year-old diabetic girl from Ukiah who is 9 weeks pregnant and speaks only Spanish. I was inspired to see her baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound -- sure a cheesy moment to pick from the day, but that was my first live US ever, and it really is amazing. I was there for her first pelvic exam, poor sweetie, and she was very brave. They were so overwhelmed by information and scared about possible complications. The docs don't seem very confident in her, but I think she's going to step up.
In other teen news, I was moved by two sisters at peds clinic this morning who were the antithesis of the adolescent reputation, being conscientious, responsible, and receptive to adult input. And man, Dr. Miller really is a pro with the kiddos, firm yet friendly. She's had so many of her patients since birth; I remember from my interview day how her office walls are plastered with patient photos. Amazingly, she didn't make me wear my white coat today! After all our battles over that issue... It was cool to finally see her in clinical action. I swear they should really integrate clinical work into all four years of medical school; we had just token experiences, but it is so much better to have context! Not that I'm the first to say it. I heard that there are PISCES-esque models being developed that span the whole education. Hallelujah.
Hm, what surprised me... Surprised how freaking windy it gets on this hill. And by how thoroughly bored I am by epidemiological lectures and their graphs. I hate graphs. Boiling the complexity of life into a line. I was thinking that about EKGs, too, how the heart is so nonlinear, yet we make it spit out this single line. To be fair, we derive a lot of information from that line. Blathering today! What surprised me is supposed to be something more positive, but you know, I was talking to Ali today, and I think it can be just as unhealthy to be unduly positive about things that actually suck. Parts of this year will be crappy, and I don't have to dress it up with unflagging optimism. I've spent a lot of the last two weeks thinking about all the careers I should have pursued instead...
Especially because I didn't have as much fun at psych clinic yesterday as I had hoped. The offices are shoeboxes with bad paint, carpet, and wall treatments. And it's so about meds. The gratification of this path is just SO AMAZINGLY DELAYED, it pains me. The day that I'm really presenting at the psychedelic conference in Basel about MDMA and PTSD or doing dialectical behavior therapy (and/orthobionomy) with my borderline patients or tending my medicinal herbal garden in far NorCal is so amazingly far away. In the meantime, I have to do small amounts of what truly makes me happy and sustains me, as much as I can. This is a low point in many ways: the work so much harder and more time intensive, the goal not much closer. But getting closer every day, I guess.
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