Estoy teniendo la fe restaurada.

As I progress through residency, the medical students that rotate through are becoming younger and younger. When we talk pop culture, I frequently find myself outdated and out-of-the-loop. Easily explainable by residency and its demand on time and energy. In general, I like having the medical students there. They play an important role on the surgical team. However, none of us residents are actually paid to teach them. We don't mind teaching, but recognizing it takes time away from getting work done, if received in any way unappreciated we quickly move on. It makes us a little bit different type of teacher than your typical school teacher or professor. It's an additional expected yet undefined role required of us. "Teacher of medical students" is nowhere in our contracts. Therefore we wait for the student to show interest first. If a student makes himself or herself scarce, I'm speaking from experience when I say that he or she is paid no mind and quickly forgotten. The student that on the other hand shows interest and willingness to get "dirty,"it ends up being a good experience for everyone involved.

As I mentioned, it seems that our medical students are becoming younger and younger. The culture of learning that they bring to the table is not what any of us residents recognize and we look at each other almost baffled as to how to teach them. With our current group of students I have seen more tears and breakdowns than ever before. Now, this could just be culturally these new students are more open and willing to shed tears than past years of students. Or on the other hand you could argue that they have been sheltered throughout their whole lives and when a patient dies, reality hits them hard and unexpectedly and they are not prepared to handle it. I've seen some students opt for the option of making themselves scarce after that. Then there are a couple students who have responded by asking how and why. I've actually been quite impressed by their foresight. I have been asked questions about surgery, imaging and procedures, and then in addition, questions about life of a resident. Everything from how to handle loosing a patient, to how do I keep from getting sick, to how to respond when an attending makes an inappropriate comment.

Ultimately, the answer to all of those questions is balance. In residency, the scale is heavily tipped on the side of work and sacrifice and lack of sleep. Having those people in your life that can periodically bring you back to sanity is vital.

Emily Walder and Amanda Virkler helping keep me sane! We tried our hand at an escape room, choosing Sherlock's Library as the game to attempt some benign clue solving. Good times.

Much Love.