Doctorly Stuff

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You Asked, I Rambled

I’ve had a raging headache for the past couple of days and that – coupled with a big project for my main client – is draining my blogging creativity.

So I figured I would answer some of your lovely questions today! They are so much more delightful than the “questions” I get via weird search terms leading people to this little blog.

I’m wondering if you ever feel … I guess insecure about your career next to your husband’s and if so, how do you feel about it/deal with it?

This is a great question. (And Kelly not offensive at all!) My current work situation is that I’m a freelance writer and editor. I love the work I do. I have great clients. I work on interesting projects. I’ve had the opportunity to communicate with customers, and that’s always enlightening and – 99% of the time – a positive experience.

But whenever we meet ANYONE, my husband gets the spotlight. “Oh Mrs. D, you’re a freelance writer? How wonderful! What do you write?” And then when I tell them, they make polite noises, turn to my husband, and pepper him with a thousand questions soaked in a heavy dose of admiration. I might as well be invisible.

That’s a little irritating.

Then there’s my own worst enemy: my mind. That little voice in my head that compares me to him. That says, “Shouldn’t you be doing something more fulfilling with your life? Shouldn’t you be doing something for the greater good? Are you really using your lengthy and expensive education for the best?”

I believe in the work I do, truly. Aside from occasional stress, I enjoy it.

But I’m not saving lives.

And my competitive nature won’t let me forget it.

So I can’t say that I haven’t had a few crises of conscience, especially in the past year. I’ve wondered if maybe I should go back to school, perhaps pursue medicine as well. I would make a great doctor!

Then again, I pass out if someone says the word “blood” too many times in one conversation.

How many hours a week does your husband work?

On average, about 80. But that’s just at the hospital. When he comes home, he sometimes has to write “notes” (ie, a catalog of all that happened in regards to his patients) or do dictations or do follow-up research on some malady or another. He also has to do research for publication, which is one of the many steps you have to go through to get a fellowship.

My husband is, I have to say, very good about drawing a firm line between work and home life. When he’s finished his doctorly duties, he’s a very attentive and loving spouse who loves to spend time with me. You can understand why I wish I got to reclaim some of those 80 hours!

Do you ever get lonely?

Wow, I thought I had whined about this enough to break the Internet! Yes, I get lonely. On some services, he also works one weekend day each week. He’s on call every fourth day, which means that he’s gone for 30+ hours. If he “caps” early (ie, he gets all of the patients he’s allotted in a timely fashion), sometimes he’ll give me a call or send me an email. But if he continues to get new patients until 11:00 pm, or if his patients are complicated, or if he has to handle a couple of “codes” (ie, patients who have emergent situations and need to be resuscitated), or if he’s holding all the team pagers (which means he has to handle the little issues that patients have for all the patients of all the other doctors on his team), or any number of other things… Then I don’t see him for over a day.

He gets up much earlier than I do, and kisses me goodbye while I’m still 85% asleep. So there’s always this moment in the morning where I’m going along all blissfully normal… and then I realize that he’s not coming home that night. It’s a little pinch of loneliness all over again.

I’ve gotten better about enjoying my alone time when he’s gone. Especially when my social life is really active… you know, like going on a date with a potential new friend… or having my monthly book club… or going out once or twice a month with my husband’s co-interns. Whoo boy! I know – you’d better sit down lest I knock you over with the whirlwind that is my exciting lifestyle.

But when it’s just me and my husband… Or – as it is more often – just me… I do get lonely.

You, Internet, have helped tremendously in that regard.  I cannot fully express how grateful I am.

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So that was just three questions and I managed to ramble on for pages and pages. Is there anything else you’d like to know? Any questions about life with a doctor? Life in general? If so, ask away!

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The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Last year at this time, I took a few hours off from work to drive with my husband to his medical school.

We found seats in a lecture room packed full of medical students and doctors and med school professors and their assorted wives and husbands and children.

The air was electric with nervous energy. My husband and his classmates joked and talked and laughed… but it was all tinged with an edge of panic.

The head of the medical school – whose title I’ve forgotten, but whose face and kind mannerisms I’ll never forget – had some games for the students to play. Prizes were given out.

My husband’s classmates put on several skits – songs, dances, impressions of professors, satires of the med school life.

All in the name of distracting themselves from the clock, which was ticking ever-so-slowly down to noon…

All in the name of avoiding the long table in the front of the room, covered with envelopes. (My husband’s name was on one of those envelopes – we checked first thing when we got there.)

The students counted down the final seconds, like some bizarre New Year’s party in the middle of March.

And I guess it was a New Year’s celebration of sorts.

Match Day. The day when med students find out where they’re headed for residency.

The road to residency is a long one. Fourth year of med school is filled with interviews and rejections and attempts to rank one stellar program over another. At the end of it all, the med student has no control over anything. She submits her rank list and hopes that one of the programs she wanted also wanted her.

On Match Day, all med students in the country (I believe) find out which residency program wanted them.

This is the beginning. The beginning of their lives as physicians. The beginning of a new, intensive level of training. The beginning of the big, terrifying Responsibility that comes with controlling your patients’ care.

It often means a new city. New colleagues. New computer systems to learn. New honeycombed hospitals to master.

At 12:00 noon on the dot, the tension was thick as honey. Nearly 100 future doctors surged toward that table and all those envelopes.

Almost immediately, you could hear cheers and whooping sounds as my husband’s classmates ripped open their envelopes and were awarded first or second choice.

My husband – the man who opens the mail right there at the mailbox… who opens new jars of peanut butter the instant we unpack them… who opens DVDs or CDs immediately after leaving Best Buy – brought his envelope back from the table to open it. He lifted out the sheet of paper with gentle, slow fingers as joyful tears and gleeful hugs erupted around us.

He read it. He smiled. He handed it to me.

And suddenly – after months of travel and worry and uncertainty – we could breathe again.

Happy Match Day, future doctors and spouses! I hope you get your first pick.