Sunday, June 13, 2010

FIRST DAY OF WORK! TOMORROW! EEEEEEE!

The day that I never thought would come is here- my first day of work as a MD!! Or least it will be here tomorrow. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So many things are going through my mind. Despite all the years of education and experience behind me, I still have the same worries I had when I first started high school, college, and medical school (and probably kindergarten too): Will people like me? Will I be smart enough? What if I'm not ready? What if I'm the dumbest one there and everyone hates me?!

Most of the time when I think about starting work I am really very excited. Gosh how awesome- I'm going to my first choice residency program with my husband! And my program is just plain amazing: everyone is so welcoming and helpful and just plain awesome! And how cool- I get to do what I love doing everyday! Gosh and I'm going to be a doctor! Wow wow wow!

And then it's somewhere mid-wow that I realize it- shoot, this means I'm going to have all the responsibilities of a doctor. When something goes wrong with a patient, it means that I probably have made a mistake. When I'm in the operating room and a patient is hemorrhaging, I have to be the one to recognize the problem, stay calm, figure out how to fix it, know all the names of the surgical tools to help me fix it, and then fix things. OHMYGOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AM I READY FOR THIS?!!! How the heck do I do this?!!

I'm filled with a mixture of excitement, anxiety, enthusiasm, and fear. I know that life will never be the same again, but I'm not sure how I will change and what I will have to do in order to adapt. I know I'm going to have to work hard, harder than I've ever had to before. I know that I'm going to have more responsibility and less time than ever before. I also know that my husband will be just as busy if not more busy and we won't be able to help each other as much as we did in the past. I know that all these big changes are coming up fast and I'm not sure how well I will be able to adapt to these changes.

I'm going to try to do what I know I still do well- make goals and to-do lists- and hope that I have a spare moment every once in awhile to remind myself of the kind of physician and adult that I hope to be during (and despite?) my residency training.



Goals for myself during residency:
-Be friendly, smile tons, and be nice to EVERYONE, even if I'm post-call and/or stressed out.
-Try to read something in OBGYN literature every day. Goal: 30 mins daily.
-Find time for myself to do a small something only for myself everyday. I hope that this is running, but I recognize that after standing all day and staying awake all night, my legs might not feel like jogging.
-Ask for feedback frequently and don't take it personally when there is a lot to change
-Find time with my husband to go on dates
-Enjoy walking my dog every day that I'm able to
-Call home once a week
-Don't complain or let negative things take over
-Stay excited for my patients, work, and life


Ok that's enough for now! Now it's time for me to channel my nervous energy into tying surgical knots, remembering labor & delivery stuff, and finishing up errands before work tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Catching up

So much has happened since I returned from the Dominican Republic. I eased back into a surreal world of urgent care clinic in a wealthy suburb back in the US (OMG who has disposable speculums with LED lights?!) and anxiously counted the days down to match day. On match day, the unbelievable happened- we matched at our first choice program! And after that, everything just speed up into a quick blur. Visits to our new city to check out housing in our new city, final wedding plans, selling our home, packing, selling things, enjoying our friends in Cleveland until we left...... and then in one quick week the wedding, graduation, packing up our home into a Penske truck, closing of our house, moving to St Louis, and leaving for our honeymoon. PHEW!

I'm happy to report that we have been in our new city for more than a week now with much less exciting things to do. We have been slowly unpacking, catching up with old friends and family, meeting new friends, figuring out our new places for takeout, stocking up the pantry, all smiley normal life things as we get settled into our new home.

Also, I changed my last name so I guess despite my blog name and enthusiasm four years ago, I never quite made it to Grob MD. :) I'm keeping the blog name because it still makes me smile. Even thought I have made the switch to the Dr prefix, it hardly feels like I deserve it yet. The road to becoming a physician is long and filled with lifelong learning. So even though I'm technically already Dr. G, I've still got much more to go before I feel like I'm done with my training. So I'm going to keep trying to blog whenever I have time and something I want to share. And I'm going to try to keep up that enthusiasm that I had about medicine and my profession that I had when I first started the blog and learning medicine.