I haven't posted in a while. I nearly posted another entry on Haiti (I haven't gone). I planned to post about my experience on Surgical Oncology this time around, but I'm almost done now. So this is an update post, written from a coffee shop in a hospital in Nashville. I'm home today. My mom is having a minor surgery and at the coaxing of one of my attendings who pointed out our overstaffedness on Mondays - I decided to come down to be with her. I'm so happy I came. Home for just a day but I really missed my family. I love getting to see all of them. I'm happy I was there to sit beside her while she waited. By telling everyone that took a breath near her that I was a surgeon - she insured that I got to go to the off limits holding area and meet the entire team. Tomorrow, I will go back to work and work hard, but today I feel a bit prouder of the work I will do because today I have made her experience a little better just because she could tell everyone I was a surgeon, and because I could help put her at ease since I knew the details of her procedure. Her increased recognition through me, adds one notch in the list for why this is worth it.
More news: I am going to start working on another paper soon looking at breast cancer in young women. I'm excited about it and really think it will be an important study. I'm gathering up some mentors here and there and starting to feel like I do belong at this program. Last week I got an important sidebar of encouragement from two attendings here and it has really motivated me to work harder and have more confidence. I feel like it was a kick in the butt to remind me of what I really want. Unfortunately at the end of the week I was called at hom
e by the director of one of the departments only to be degraded about my incompetence. That was a bad few hours. Some tears were shed, but now I'm shaking it off and moving on and trying to actually learn from the experience.
Lastly, as mentioned many times before, my husband is amazing.
