Estoy preparando salir.

 The PA system of a hospital is a type of paging system. Just loud and very public rather than the direct individual signal to the small black box on my waistband that sets off the pavlovian chain reaction of acute tachycardia, tachypnea, and mydraisis. Perhaps the most common overhead page announced at the hospital is "Sepsis Alert. ED. Now." and for some reason it gets me almost every time. I hear "Dr. Stoller. ED. Now." I pause and wait for the repeat; wondering what could be so emergent they didn't bother to shoot me a page and opted to just announce it to the whole hospital. On the repeat, it inevitably is Sepsis not Stoller, and I go about my business wondering how on earth I keep getting those two mixed up. 

 Then, the other morning I was walking outside the ED and passed one of our Anesthesiologists who made a quip about "getting to the ED now!" And then asked me what the emergency had been. Confused I responded as such. To which he pointed out I had been overhead paged to the ED about 30 minutes prior. Realization sunk in when it dawned on me the only overhead page that morning had been a sepsis alert to the ED, approximately 30 minutes prior. I am not, therefore, crazy for hearing Stoller instead of Sepsis. Nor the only one to hear it. Always good to know we are not alone.

For the past two months I've been slowly trying to make a graceful exit from the practice in order to go to Togo without leaving my partners more work than their own. I stopped accepting new referrals in October. However, due to the holidays and the time I took surrounding the oral boards, I find I'm still running up to the wire trying to find a place to squeeze everyone in. In addition, multiple of my patients are recently requiring additional follow up. Follow up which I can not provide for them. It makes me feel like a jerk each time. For example, "sorry, you've got cancer. see ya!" Granted, I am much more empathetic with my delivery and I do provide them the referrals they need and support as appropriate. But still, makes me feel like a jerk (and that's putting it nicely). No matter how "graceful" of an exit I attempt. This role is not one that by it's nature provides for any sort of delicate exit.

Much Love.