"A waste of your personality"
This is what one of my classmates told me yesterday after I mentioned that I wanted to be a surgeon.
Oh, by the way, just in case you had not heard it from me yet, I want to be a surgeon. So, for some reason, I got it stuck in my head that I can't live the rest of my life without being in an OR with a "knife" in my hand.
But back to the waste of my personality... I just find it fascinating that most people pin me as the pediatrician, even though I always verbalize my dislike for children. Something about being happy and bubbly all the time and acting like a little kid that makes people think that I want to be around sick children. It just makes me think of the discrpancies between how we view ourselves and how the world sees us. My response to my classmate was, "I don't think it's a waste of my personality. I actually think it is a great use of it." The problem is that she's not the only one that has either been surprised by my decision or completely thrown off by it. The most responsive/supportive are those that are also intrested in surgical specialties. I am not sure if it is an actual pattern or just a coincidence, but it was enough to make me think about it for prolonged periods of time.
I can understand why some people are surprised. There is this stereotype of surgeons beyond most of them being white males (both of which I am not). Most are egotistical, tyrannical, pompous, arrogant, controlling, rude, opinionated, stubborn, jerks that get that way because 1. that's how they are treated 2. the pressures of the profession (no sleep, very little food, dehydration, the stress of having someone's life literally in the palm of your hand) 3. it's a way to get things done (aka: being assertive, effective and making sure your team doesn't doubt you during those critical times, even if you are sometimes wrong.) I'm not defending their attitudes nor am I saying it's justified, but it does make some sense. I may not be all of those things, but not all surgeons are like that all the time. Some of the surgeons I have met have excellent relationships with their patients and, even more importantly, with their nurses. They are polite, eloquent, and exude this confidence that I hope to obtain with experience. But what I find most appealing about them is that they respect your time (only because they expect you to be considerate of only their time), and are effective in getting things done. As a med student, I rarely got stuck doing scut work like I have for my other clerkships. And they are great about making the most about teaching moments.
There are a lot of things about the profession that draw me to it: the mix of complexity and simplicity, the surgical options plus medical management, the depth of knowledge AND skills. There's very little about medicine that isn't part artform and surgery is no different. Surgeons know the problem, the medicine behind it, and how to treat effectively. You have to be able to diagnosis and differentiate between true emergencies and emergent problems. Surgeons have the very special privilage to actually go inside someone's body and try to fix something. So many things can go wrong, there is so much to be aware of and it is just one of the most exhilarating experiences ever.
And while there are a number of professions that I could eventually be happying doing, I want to have a job that I wake up every morning excited about. I want to be able to come home at night and learn more about a pt and their disease without it being an extra burden. I want to get up in the morning and have something to look foward to. There's just so much more that I can't put into words, but I do know this: I have yet to be as excited about anything or sleep as little w/o whining about it too much, like I did while I was in surgery. I see the surgeons around the hospital or my classmates doing their surgery clerkship and I just want to be one of them and stray into an OR.
So while superficially I may not be the typical surgeon, as long as I love what I'm doing, and I'm good at it, screw what everyone else thinks!
posted by ~y at 7:17 PM
4 Comments:
You were rather supportive... which, believe it or not, surprised me. The first time I mentioned the possibility of become a surgeon with hopes to be trained at one of the best medical centers, and taking a year off to ensure that, you weren't quite as supportive. So I wasn't actually quite sure what your reaction was going to be when I told you my mind was made up. So that may have been some miscommunication on my part, but I was rather bummed out nonetheless.
But you're right, other people's opinions don't really matter as much. And while I don't have to kick them to make myself feel better, it is nice to be able to feel more than ok about a life-changing decision without anyone else's approval/disapproval/support or whatever.
Actually, I don't think we were unsupportive about you taking a year off. I think we were leery of it, because in some ways, it seems like a diversion from this path you've been on since high school. And the justification seemed sort of shaky, especially at first. We just want what's best for you.
I'd like to think that we might disagree each others' opinions, and we might not always understand each other, but we will always be supportive.
And, you know, if you ever feel that we are unsupportive, you can tell us. Really. I'd prefer to hear it from you than for you to carry around hurt about it.
Like I said, I may have misunderstood your reactions and comments because after about 5 minutes into it I was already upset. All the questions that you asked me made me feel unsupported, and, quite frankly, they confused me. It felt like you guys were trying to convince me not to be a better doctor, to not try something that could possibly be difficult, and because I was already "miserable here, why stay here (or in a similar environment)."
Because I value your opinions more than just about everyone else on earth, I couldn't understand why both of you were so determined to question my intentions and emphatically telling me I was straying from my goals. And because I know that you are always looking out for me, I began to ask myself, "is there something in the whole picture that I can't see, what was it that I just don't get, what insight am I lacking that I just don't understand my best friends' reactions?"
Being me, my first reaction was to end the conversation and call it a night. I guess I was so upset and confused that if I had kept talking to you guys that night we would have ended up in a fight. I just felt like you just didn't understand, and no matter how much I tried to explain, you just weren't getting it. So in my mind, I just gave up talking to you hoping that I would figure out why your reaction wasn't what I expected.
Of course it's not the first time we haven't agreed (God knows we hold different opinions on just about everything), and it wasn't the first time we didn't understand eachother (because let's be honest, who really understands what goes on in our crazy heads), but it was the first time I felt completely alone. It felt like the floor had just been taken out from under my feet and that the very foundation that held me up had collapsed. I just didn't feel that you were going to be behind me, supporting me. I guess what I had wanted to hear was, "good, finally you made a decision, it's about time you started to work harder. it's good that you are aware of what you need to do." But that was not what my mind was interpreting as our conversation continued.
So as the days went by, nothing made sense. I felt like I was standing on the opposite side of the world from both of you. And so I thought and searched all my feelings, my emotions, my intentions and come up empty. I mean, it was you two who told me that it was ok to come to NY, away from home; that it was the best thing I could do, no matter how hard it was. It was you two that kept my spirits up everytime I thought about coming home and starting somewhere else or something else. So I asked myself, "why are they no longer behind me. Have I changed that much?"
So when I finally figured out that all I want is to be a good surgeon, I thought you guys should be the first to know. And this time you were every supportive. So, I figured that the first conversation must have taken place when you both happened to be having an off day. But I guess I was still a little bitter afterwards (who would have guessed I carry grudges). Goes to show you maybe I'm not the best at letting people know how I feel right away.
I love you. Let's talk for real about this soon.
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