I learned sumthin...

Everyone all year has told me how much they learned on the internal medicine rotation (re: rotation I just finished with). I didn't really believe them as I went through the rotation and pretty much just struggled to hang on for the ride. But now as I go through my family medicine rotation, I know that it's true. I know what meds to give people with specific conditions. I know when a symptom is very serious and can't be ignored, and when "it's just a virus." And I'm finally starting to understand treatment of diabetes. Starting. Diabetics who can alter their insulin levels to their carb intake are still much more proficient than I am. I'm starting to feel like a doctor. Or at least like I could someday be a doctor. Which trust me, at the beginning of third year, was not the case. And more importantly, I like it and know it was the right decision. Every now and again when the hours are long I haven't been able to shake the feeling that maybe I should have just finished the PhD and moved on. It would be done by now, there would be no residency to follow. But there would be no catching babies. No teasing out a history of potential endometrial cancer that may have gone overlooked. No pulling off ascites fluid to make someone's quality of life better in their end stage liver disease. It would be a different life. In some ways better (more time with the coming kiddo) and in some ways so much worse. I know residency will seem impossibly hard at times, but in the long run, I don't want to do anything else.

It does make it easier to feel this way when you get off work at 3 every day.....