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| mh telling me who to call for neuro theatre |
how does anybody ever really know what they want to do with the rest of their lives?
actually, let me rephrase.
i find that the notion of having to choose what i want to do for the rest of my life in less than 5 years a rather scary one.
a year ago, i (somehow) wanted to do neurology. 3 months ago, i wanted to do paediatrics (was it only 3 months ago?! it seems so much longer than that!)
and now, i want to do either neuro-oncology or paediatric oncology.
i don't know whether this is me being fickle, or this is me discovering what i really like because i've finally been exposed to it. i announced to pretty much everybody that i wouldn't consider oncology at all and it was safely out of my life and i was happy that that one week in fourth year was all the oncology i was ever going to come into contact with...
... and look where i am now.
i don't really even know what i like so much about neuro-oncology. is it the challenge of having to deal with patients whose lives are going to be changed forever with the diagnosis that i am yet to give them? is it because even though it seems like a very broad specialty there are actually only a few main cancers and hence i won't be "overwhelmed"? (oligodendrogliomas, anaplastic oligodendrogliomas and astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiformes - the rest are rather minor: ependymomas, meningiomas, schwannomas etc)
(both points seem rather contradictory - it is challenging, yet it is not. hahaha.)
is it the possibility of research, the possibility of discovering so many things that other people are not just privy to yet? maybe it's the thrill of being able to work in johns hopkins and knowing about all these fantastic things that people here dedicate their lives to on a daily basis, and yet having the 'exclusivity' of knowing things the rest of the world doesn't know?
is it because i like working with mh and the current brain cancer team, who are the most fabulous and wonderful people ever?
would i have felt the same way if i were to have done 6 weeks of, say, rheumatology, or anaesthetics, or public health, or general surgery?
but in order to have the opportunity to feel that way about other specialties, wouldn't i have already chosen to do my elective in them?
"that being said" (this has been said so many times in mh's clinic i now hear it being said in his voice and accent HAHA), why did i do a six week elective in neuro-oncology, of all things? is it mainly because it was easier to get compared to other specialties?
or was it all...
meant to be?
"that being said" (mh's voice and accent), "again" (sg's voice and hand gesture HAHAHA), let's talk about paediatric (neuro)oncology.
as i was walking to the neurology operating theatre today, the nurse who was bringing me there told me about her now 8 year old niece who was diagnosed with retinoblastoma when she was 2 and who had to undergo an enucleation, and how when she looks at her 19 month old her daughter every day she feels so thankful that she is so healthy... and how she thinks it takes a special kind of person to be able to do paediatric oncology. this was after she gave me this weird look when i said i was interested in neuro-oncology - a look which said "wtf is wrong with you, why would ANYBODY want to do something so depressing?!".
and i ALMOST said "well, somebody has to do it"
which was inappropriate of me because honestly, i am not as "affected" as everybody (and i) thought i would be.
maybe it's because i'm not dealing with patients of my own yet. the only sliver of emotion i felt was when this patient with short term memory loss kept saying over and over again how he was planning to commit suicide. he wasn't saying it repeatedly because he was being depressed or dramatic, he was doing it because he forgot that he said it 10 minutes ago. he also forgot that the promised the doctor that he would call his pastor to talk about his life in the past 10 minutes. and each time he brought up his intention to end his own life, it was genuine and it didn't have the glazed effect of something which has been repeated just for the sake of it. each time was just as raw and desperate as the time before.
that being said (i'm just being annoying on purpose lol), i didn't even flinch when one of the nurse practioners broke down with the mother of a 20+ year old outside the consultation room. i don't know if i've lost the ability to feel compassion and empathy.
all those years of the medical school teaching us how and when to say things like "i understand that it must be hard for you" and "i'm sorry that you have to go through this" has probably worked its "magic". how can you ever, ever teach empathy? now my mind switches into autopilot mode and i say those words when i think (keyword being "think" and not "feel") that they are the appropriate things to say, even without processing what the patient is really saying and listening to what is between the lines.
the first step to rectifying a problem is to admit that you have one, huh? well i guess i've got that covered, at least.
anyway i don't know how this all morphed into a discussion of my communication skills.
at least i'm now distracted from the more pressing question that is WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WHEN I BECOME A DOCTOR?!
we'll leave that for now.
PS. i witnessed a stereotactic needle biopsy today! it was supposed to start at 12.30 pm but it actually started at 4.30 pm wtf. and then i was thinking, so is it true that that particular neurosurgeon only had 2 cases the entire day -_- and it wasn't like he was in the theatre for the whole procedure (make no mistake, i think he is a wonderful and great surgeon and person in general!)... and there was this part where the people had to lock the MRI guides into position at a 0.0 +/- 0.2 degrees angle, it was ocd heaven. HAHAHAHA.
