Tag: Michigan

Betrayed

Published on by Mindy NLeave a comment

In 2018, I was a third year Emergency Medicine resident who was worried about starting a work out program, when I was going to get my final chest tubes so I could mark them off my procedure log, and when the f***k I could get out of Michigan. I had no clue what was about to happen. I, along with the rest of the world, didn’t know that our entire world would be turned upside down. I didn’t know that medicine, this thing that I had loved and worked towards my entire life, would turn into this angry thing that had betrayed me.

I started 2019 in much of the same way. I woke up, studied, and went to work. I had my life pre-programmed for me by yet another aspect of medical education. What rotation I worked, what hospital I worked at, and my schedule was all set by someone else. I was just beginning to become really confident in who I was as a doctor. I could finally really focus on emergency medicine and how I wanted to practice. And then, November happened…and with it a change no one was expecting. COVID was initially thought of as just another viral flu-like illness. And Michigan wasn’t in the hot seat, yet. But that soon changed. And our entire lives became overwhelmed with the thought of COVID – both professionally and personally. We were restricted to our homes, forced to wear masks for the first time in public, and isolated from others.

But even that wasn’t when I felt like medicine had betrayed me.

I went into 2020 excited to graduate and move home. I had a new job, a new apartment, and a new start. I was excited! And then I had issues getting my medical license for California because COVID slowed all paperwork down. So I sat in my new apartment and waited. Waited to be able to leave my house, waited to be able to work….waited.

And yet, my betrayal hadn’t happened yet.

I started my attending career during the second large surge of COVID in 2020 in California. I was overwhelmed with having crashing patients in new hospitals where I didn’t know the staff, let alone where the bathroom was. I was overwhelmed with the amount of CODES and death I was having to handle and deal with. I was overwhelmed with the sadness I had when I came home from every shift. I was overwhelmed with the amount of fatigue and exhaustion I was feeling as well as my staff. I was overwhelmed.

And still, my betrayal was waiting around the corner.

Soon, our COVID numbers declined and I was able to take a breathe again. But with that quiet, I was able to think. I second guessed every small decision, my hands shook when I had to do a procedure, and I started to have panic attacks. I would sit in the bathtub, crying, and dreading when I had to return to the hospital. I would turn my phone off in fear that someone would ask me to cover a shift or even worse, ask me about a case. I would snap at nurses, friends, and family. I researched careers in which I could use my medical degree without being in medicine. Even going so far as to research careers where I could just escape my medical degree altogether. I just kept repeating that life was supposed to be better as an attending! Attending status was the “golden ring” that I had been working towards since high school…..and it was tarnished and rusty.

I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I couldn’t continue like that. I had given up so much of my life to become a doctor that my job was basically my life, so hating my job meant that I hated my life. As a child, I had grown up in the hospital and fell in love. I had decided at a young age that my career was going to be medicine. My identity had been entwined with the idea/pursuit of becoming a doctor so much that giving medicine up felt like giving up my life.

And that’s when I realized that medicine had betrayed me.

While all my colleagues were experiencing burnout highly related to COVID, I was experiencing burnout just from medicine. No one else was crying in their bathtubs. No one else was researching how to open a small bakery in a New England town. No one else was struggling like I was.

I had been physically isolated due to COVID (for about 2 years now…) and while that was hard, this isolation struck much deeper. I didn’t know how to reconcile the freedom and happiness that was supposed to come with attending hood and what I was experiencing. I didn’t know how others could feel happy going to their job. I didn’t know how others weren’t paralyzed in self doubt with every patient. I didn’t know exactly what I was expecting from being an attending but it definitely wasn’t this.

I sat alone in this struggle for about a year. I went through the motions that accompany life – waking up, eating, showering, and seeing patients. I focused on my shortcomings and how I was failing as a doctor or not as good as my colleagues. Any praise or support was easily brushed aside in favor of my anxiety-ridden inner monologue. I cried in the bathroom again and again.

I reached out for help with my friends from medical school and residency. Ones who have sat in that library with me or in the pit of the ER. Ones who knew me and had also gone through the physical and mental rigors of the medical education marathon. I started to prioritize therapy focused on imposter syndrome, meditation, affirmations, and meditation. And these changes greatly improved my life and outlook.

However, I still saw this as a personal betrayal of my childhood love.

I wasn’t aware of how much this happens to people when they start out as attendings for the first time. I didn’t know that others, some much closer that I could have realized, experienced the same kind of fear and anxiety. The feeling that this thing that we loved, that we worked and sacrificed for could turn into something that we dread and hated.

And while I spent a lot of last year in silence, marinating in that feeling of betrayal. This year, I am being loud about my friendship with medicine. While I can’t say that I’m quite back to being infatuated with medicine like I was as a sweet, innocent medical student in the library, I can say that I don’t cry before shifts anymore. I’m excited to go to work and help people – from something as easy as a turkey sandwich to intense resuscitations. I’m comfortable asking for help when needed and not seeing that as a failure – but as a strength! I’m focused on being the doctor I always wanted to be.

So while medicine might have betrayed me, she’s making some amends.

Match Day 2016

Published on by Mindy NLeave a comment

When I thought about re-starting a blog, I thought about the blog I had in medical school. It documented and chronicled the fear, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed that myself and my peers were going through. But it all culminated in one day: Match Day 2016. The day that decided our futures — everything from what speciality we were going to pursue every day for the rest of our lives to where we would live. My relationship at the time was even hanging on what that meant. And it all culminated at 4:30am on February 8, 2016. With one email. That decided the rest of my life.

Spoiler alert: I got Emergency Medicine. And I moved to Michigan/Ohio.

Now, as a second year, I have settled into my position as a resident. I walk into the hospital with a smile on my face (most days at least) and a feeling of belonging. But there was still something missing. And that’s where this blog comes in – how to fill that creative space, how to process such a demanding time in my life, and how to coincide the need for social justice that has spurred me since I was in fifth grade.

Spoiler Alert: I got Emergency Medicine. And then….Michigan. What now?

So I thought I would post my blog about that first day when I found out where I was going to go. That first day when I realized I was actually going to be Dr. N. That first day that I started to think that about becoming that #torpedointoledo.

“For the last half of third year and for all of fourth year so far, I have focused on today. I have spent many nights, awake in my bed, tossing and turning, obsessing over getting an email at 4am stating if I can actually become an emergency medicine physician. I have cried over this day. I have worked my ass off working towards this day. I have put my all into making sure this day isn’t the absolute worst day of my life.

And now it’s here.

I thought I would be fine. Just a little anxious, like I always am, but able to function. I thought that after I got the email that I would be more excited (hopefully) than anything and ready to celebrate for the rest of the day. I thought it would be a happy day.

But then the day happened. And I knew my life would be forever different. I just wasn’t expecting how.

But let’s go back to how that day started: I fell asleep the night before, with the help of some sleep-inducing fun for the Superbowl, around 11pm. I had originally decided that I was going to tough it out and not sleep until I got that email, anytime between 4am-9am. But that fantastical idea, along with my roommates, mother, and a friend who was there for moral support, slowly faded into real dreams. And around 2am, I awoke with a start.

“Did I rank the right places?” “What if they don’t really like me?” “Do I really want to be an emergency medicine physician?”

All of a sudden, every single fear I have ever had during medical school came rushing back! Thankfully, my mother was sleeping next to me and was easily awoken by my rushed, panicked breathing. And for the next two hours, my mom tried to usher me back to sleep, hoping that I would relax. Sadly, for both of us, my breathing might have calmed, but my mind did not. I laid in my mother’s lap, while she stroked my hair, listening to Michael Scott orchestrate another “Conference Room Meeting” on “The Office” and trying to focus on his shenanigans. I hoped that Michael’s hilarious, delusional interactions with his co-workers would be comforting enough (since I can watch “The Office” all day every day) to distract me. However, even Michael couldn’t help me that morning. It seriously might have been the longest two hours of my life.

Around 4am, my heart skipped a beat and I sat up quickly. It was like my semi-unconscious body could tell time! I knew that the emails could have been sent out as early as 4am, but knowing my luck — and how tired I was–I knew the email would come later. But that didn’t stop me from opening my computer and my email. So while my mom laid next to me and my friend snored quietly at the foot of my bed, I logged into my email….and nothing. So I refreshed. Again, nothing. So I tried to focus my attention back on Michael, Dwight, Jim, and Pam. And I succeeded, for a whole two minutes and then hit refresh again. My entire being was focused on this little routine: hit refresh, register that there was no email yet, and then try to focus on “The Office”. Wash, rinse, repeat. Only it was refresh, nothing, “The Office.” For 45 whole minutes I repeated this routine (if I ever did this to my hair, it might be more than just a frizzy curly mess but that’s a whole different story). And suddenly: it was there! I hadn’t even opened the email before the shriek came out of my mouth. My mother and friend suddenly woke up and looked at me expectantly. My fingers were frozen, unable to actually click the message to see what it said, it was actually here! It took a few seconds for the immediate shock to wear off and my fingers to process functional movement again. There it was, in black and white, my future:

CONGRATULATIONS. Emergency Medicine. Promedica Monroe.

My eyes went straight to those words and I shrieked again. My mom grabbed my computer and then started laughing. My friend looked at me expectantly, and when she saw the joy in my eyes, jumped up and hugged me. My roommate in the next room peeked her head in and smiled. This was it! I had done it!

And then my next thought was “Ohhhhhhhh great, what the fuck do I do now?”

My entire life, all 27 years of it, had culminated in this moment. I had worked so hard for it, sacrificed friendships and relationships, gotten into massive amounts of debt, and it was finally here. It’s like when Olympic hopefuls who have spent countless hours reaching for that gold medal finally attain it or that actor finally wins an Oscar. Now what do you do?

And I think that was the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with. No one talks about this moment, or the many after, in which you sit there, basking in the glow of your achievement, and wonder what the next step is. As an overly ambitious young woman, my life is measured in working to achieve goals and achieving goals. However, previously, my goals were just stepping stones to another goal. First, I had to get into a good college, then it was perform well on the MCAT, etc etc. Each goal just got me another step closer to this goal. Even getting accepted into medical school was just a stepping stone. But this particular goal seemed more like a finish line than any of the previous achievements/goals. And even after a marathon runner finishes a race, even though it took them months to prepare and hours to complete, crosses that finish line and STOPS RUNNING. They put a very futuristic silver blanket on and collapse on the ground. But they stop running.

And I have stopped running.

And I keep wondering, “now what?”

-April 2016