Last night Sandy and I received a personal phone call from the head of our selection committee at MGH (Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital- #1 program in the country) telling us they want us. I guess sometimes hard work does pay off. I'm still holding my breath until match day (March 17th)!
Got out from work early today! Yippee!
Today, my patient told me (and the rest of my team) that I have a "gift." When expressing how well we are all taking care of her, she singled out me: "Especially her," she said, "She's really something," "She really has a gift."
This is why I am in the field of medicine. For whatever reason, I have made a difference in this woman's life. She actually only has about a month left to live due to the severity of her illness, and I take comfort knowing that in her last moments, I have made her life a little easier, comforted her in some way. It makes me really happy to realize that even the small moments I spend with my patients can make a difference.
Why, after all of these months of reading other people's blogs, am I suddenly compelled to start my own? It has always seemed kind of strange to me to make your deepest thoughts open to the world. I guess I want a place to acknowledge and reflect on my day-to-day feelings, and I hope that I can be more successful typing random thoughts into my computer than I've ever been at keeping a hand-written journal (I will write in them everyday for a week and then nothing for months, and then once the chronology has been interrupted I just sort of give up). Maybe by making my thoughts available to others, I must somehow own up to them in a way that I don't have to if I am the only one reading them. Somehow they seem more real and true when I have to click the "publish" button. Maybe those who know me will be touched by the person they know me to be or surprised by what they newly discover. For those who don't know me (and those who do), maybe you will find truth in the ordinariness of my daily life .... and maybe, so will I.