Post-residency musings

I can finally say that my surgical residency is a thing of the past. As the months of my chief year flew by, I was surprised to find myself dreading the change I had been waiting for so long. For five years, my life was entirely predictable. Every year was divided into 12 blocks of rotations, every rotation made up of 4 weeks of the same cycle of attendings, surgeries, and calls. I didn't have the luxury or responsibility of deciding much, other than performing to the best of my ability as a resident. My precious little free time was spent chasing after my toddler, trying to find balance and make the most of our time together.

As residency wound down, I realized that my 5 years of predictability would also change--not just the structure of my days, weeks, months and years, but also what is expected of me as a mother, wife, daughter, surgeon and human being. What I expect of myself.

In residency, I never liked to blame my schedule for my shortcomings in those important life roles. It was an easy out, one that most of my family (doctors) and friends (doctors) would understand. Everyone knows how hard surgical residents work, although my dad's generation of surgeons would argue vehemently that we don't work hard enough (cue the grumbling, "those millenials..."). My absence at important family events and failure to contribute to the lives of those that I love the most was simply understood all this time. And I don't just mean the 5 years of residency, because the 6 years leading up to it were just as all-consuming in different ways. It takes a LOT of love and support poured into one human being to become a surgeon, and with my family's help I had the world lifting me up.

But even though my family and friends always understood my relative absence in their lives, the gnawing feeling of unfulfilled duty and inability to express my love from afar did not abate. My mind drifts to my beloved grandfather's funeral, which I missed as a junior resident because I was on night float. I came the following weekend, but couldn't help feeling it was too little, too late.

Nor was I there to help my mother and sister care for my father when he suffered a heart attack last year. Again, I did what I could to fulfill my duties as a resident and as a daughter, rearranging the call schedule to be there the next day when he came home from the hospital. By that time, thank God, he was fine--but again, the critical moment of need and togetherness had passed.

I could go on with the stories of things I missed, big and small--these are just two. Sometimes it isn't the big events, but the small ones. I think of those also with a lump in my throat--the moments of bringing my mom tea in bed, philosophizing with my dad in the early mornings, or stroking my sister's hair when she needs an ear or a shoulder as she takes care of the entire world.

I was raised to achieve academic excellence. This was the goal from as far back as I remember. My parents taught me strong values, of course. Charity, honesty and integrity were of utmost importance. But to gain knowledge and degrees were, unmistakably, the measure of one's worth. I internalized this more than I realized.

As I reflect, I find myself now, an MD MPH, not beaming with pride and puffing my chest, but instead with some trepidation as I try to make sense of what I've become, and how to get to where I want to go.

My mentor once told me, frustrated with my self-deprecation, "You never seemed quite settled in residency." It's true, I was always unsettled. I'm still unsettled. Another wise attending told me frequently in the operating room, "You have to know what you don't know". And this is why I'm unsettled. Whatever I have accomplished by the grace of God--that is the known. It doesn't matter much anymore. Perhaps I devalue it too much--I appreciate what I've been so fortunate to be able to do--but it is the past, and there is too much future, too much unknown, too much undone, to feel settled.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, to me, as I finish residency and start this new chapter, is that the unknown is not necessarily another academic achievement. The unknown I set out to discover now is entirely different, though entirely the same. I have taken so much--climbed hungrily on the shoulders of my family, my friends, and my teachers. It is my turn now to give, to be the shoulders on which others climb, to build a foundation upon which others can rise up to reach their dreams.

As I start this new adventure, this is the achievement I strive for, for my family, my friends, my patients, and anyone I encounter. There is no degree, trophy or PubMed ID for it, and it does not go on a resume, but it's more rewarding than anything else I can imagine.