Son of "Hiatus Ended"

Okay, enough is enough. I've been trying to clothe my year-long bloggers block in virtue by saying that I've been throwing myself into becoming a good urologist. And it's true - I've studied more conscientiously in the past eight months than I did during my entire four years of medical school, and discovered with delight that I actually do love being a urologist (not a small relief, as so many medical students embark upon their specialization after having had at most one or two months of experience in that field).

And it paid off VERY well, as I've made a pretty good impression on my superiors with my case preparation and fund of knowledge, hopefully ensuring that my next three years of residency will pass in relative peace.

Sad to say, but medicine is not without its politics. You find out pretty early during residency that departments are run by dictators (fortunately, in the case of my department, a velvet-gloved one), with a cadre of favor-currying minions all secretly vying for the head spot. You find out perhaps too late that those attendings who seemed so jovial when you interviewed with them have a surpisingly critical eye, and that indeed, their whole reason for being is to point out your shortcomings. You also find out that they talk amongst themselves at faculty meetings, and that an amorphous "conventional wisdom" regarding your talents and intelligence as a surgeon inevitably forms.



This conventional wisdom, unfortunately, does not come from any objective data or polling; rather it comes from individual memories of how you answered this one obscure question, or from a random recollection of a single lab value that you forgot to look up. Which is all to say that public opinion snowballs through gossip, such that a mere eight months into my urology training, there is already a Gestalt of Ilene.

Luckily, it seems to be a pretty good one. I aced my inservice test, seem to be thought of well. But I have mixed feelings about this, because if I feel like Cinderella being magically transformed into a princess urologist, I know that one of my fellow residents is one of the ugly stepsisters and has been targeted for special observation and pointed "re-education" through sometimes brutal pimping and questioning. The attendings don't trust him, and every little mistake he makes further compounds his reputation for being as screw-up.

While I...I slip under the radar, feeling just the tiniest bit guilty, knowing that it is unlikely that I will ever fall under that kind of scrutiny, having already received a stamp of approval. My errors will be glossed over as honest mistakes, my quirks smiled at with benevolence. I've already seen it - the assumption that I'm going to do the right thing. Every Monday we have a conference with the faculty members where we go over patients, and I never get the same barrage of questions that other people have. I stay out of their fire, somehow. Maybe it's all chance encounter, or a response to my general politeness, but Joe thinks it's because I've been working hard. And I am grateful for the hours I spent reading Campbell's Urology at the expense of my blog.

Yet, as I relax in the knowledge that I've made my reputation, I'm restless. I've been devouring books lately in my spare time, defiantly NOT studying. I've also felt slightly...unfulfilled, itchy. And so my blog is back. Long live the blog!