Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Life at Grady: A clinician-educator reflects
A version of the following post, by Kimberly Manning, appeared on the blog Reflections of a Grady Doctor.
May and June mark the end of our academic year in medical education. The medical students either advance to the next level or become sho' nuff and bonified doctors--albeit uncertified and untrained--but doctors nonetheless. The interns exit the novice stage and become residents; one week asking someone senior what to do, the next telling someone junior what to do. And of course, the senior residents and fellows finally get the stamp of approval that officially releases them from the nest. It's kind of bittersweet for folks like me--the surrogate mommies and daddies that helped guide them along this path to becoming full-fledged physicians.
(Click "more" button below to continue reading.)
What used to make these transitions so hard for me is the nature of time. With time, some of the most seemingly memorable people can fade into fuzzy blurs....reduced completely to (snap your finger) "What was that guy's name? Uggghh! It's going to bother me all day! That guy with the sandy brown hair and freckles that went into Cardiology!" That guy took call with you every third night in the ICU and ordered Chinese and Italian takeout with you. That guy told you that your inconsiderate boyfriend who made you cry between admissions was missing out and that it was his loss. That girl wrote you the nicest card at the end of the year, and even invited you to her wedding. Oh, and that student you worked with? She was the one you vowed to stay in contact with forever. What happened?
So here's the thing: Life happens. People move and people move on. Those everyday surroundings fade into remote memories right along with some of the most everyday people. What does that mean? Does it mean that those things were somehow less important? Does it mean that we have allowed ourselves to become so busy with our business, and fussy with our fussiness that we've neglected to preserve the flowers that we used to smell every single day? Naaah. It's not that simple. The older you get, the more you realize that there's more to it than that.
"People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
When you figure out which it is,
you know exactly what to do for each person."
~ Aleksandra Lachut
My mother shared this quote with me the day before I got married. She elaborated on the importance of all three, and how fortunate those who can discern such a thing are when meeting people along life's path. I've decided that this applies to the relationships fostered in medicine, too. There are some students and residents that I can close my eyes and see, hear, and bring to life with virtually no effort. Then there are classmates from medical school that I could not name if my life depended upon it.
There are also people that I've had only fleeting contact with professionally, who somehow clicked with me and became "keepers." Like my friend Kris R. who worked with me at Grady for, like five seconds, but who, upon first meeting, was an automatic keeper. The instant friend that was only passing through but whose friendship felt exactly like worn-in slippers from the start, and who made me laugh so hard over dinner last week that I thought I would be sick. Or like my friend and fellow Grady doctor, Lesley M., who almost never shares the same clinic schedule or ward schedule or schedule period with me, but who seamlessly maintains "lifetime" status as one of the people I most look forward to seeing at work. The quantity of time a person spends with you, or even the quality alone for that matter, is not quite what determines where they will fall in the reason-season-or lifetime lineup. It seems to just happen on some higher plane that can't be forced or explained.
I won't take it personally if a student, a resident, or a colleague doesn't remember me in high definition. It's okay because I know that some will. And despite their best efforts, I know that the others will eventually recall me only as (snap your finger!) "You know! That black female attending that wore the short haircut that wrote the touchy-feely blog! You know who I'm talking about!" Yep. It's hard to imagine...but it's a reality that just is. And you know what? I'm okay with that.
Labels: graduation, Life at Grady, medical student, resident
posted by Jessica Berthold at
7:00 AM
Contact ACP Hospitalist
Send comments to ACP Hospitalist staff at acphospitalist@acponline.org.
Previous Posts
- Life at Grady: Ready-ta-go
- Take two aspirin but don't call me when you really...
- An admission that inpatient care is needed
- More details that no one read.
- Talking about readmissions
- Life at Grady: Innocence Lost
- Medical slang: Zombie Case
- Medical news of the obvious
- We had freedom fries...and now, freedom donuts?
- Increased medical errors in July
Blog log
Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert
Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he
also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American
Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a
full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening
his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.
Zackary
Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care
doctor and general internist in the Division of General Internal
Medicine at Johns Hopkins. His research interests include
doctor-patient communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.
CasesBlog
Ves
Dimov, MD, ACP Member, is an allergist/immunologist and Assistant
Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago,
where he evaluates and treats both pediatric and adult patients.
David
Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally
renowned authority on nutrition, weight management, and the
prevention of chronic disease, and an internationally recognized
leader in integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
db's
Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP,
contributes short essays contemplating medicine and the health care
system.
DrDialogue
Juliet
K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about health topics
for patients and health professionals.
Dr.
Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal
medicine for more than a decade and is an Associate Professor of
Medicine at an academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is
split between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything
Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid
changes in science, medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet
Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the Internal
Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship & Discovery
at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of Chicago. Her
education and research focus is on resident duty hours, patient
handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of hospital care. She
is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass
Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides
transparency on the workings of medical practice and the complexities
of hospital care, illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of
caregiving and decision-making from the perspective of an active
primary care physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of
hospital sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut
Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist
at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the
Program Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have difficult-to-manage
esophageal problems such as refractory GERD, heartburn, and chest
pain.
I'm
dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic
hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and
education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic
testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning,
medical informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code
management, palliative care, patient-physician communication, quality
improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.
Informatics
Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair,
Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon
Health & Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics
related to biomedical and health informatics.
Just
Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in
clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a
joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin
Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites for
influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses
the joys and challenges of medical practice, including controversies
in the doctor-patient relationship, medical ethics and measuring
medical quality. When he's not writing, he's performing
colonoscopies.
Medical
Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares
her ideas on education, ethics in medicine, health care news and
culture. Her views on medicine are informed by her past experiences
in caring for patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as
a patient who's had breast cancer.
More
Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general
practice internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal
musings about medicine, life, armadillos and Sasquatch at More
Musings (of a Distractible Kind).
Musing
of an Internist
Justin Penn, MD, ACP Associate Member,
attended medical school at the University of Washington School of
Medicine and trained in internal medicine at the University of
Rochester, where he is serving as Chief Resident.
Prescriptions
David
M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a small
community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of musings on
medicine, medical care, the health care system and medical ethics, in
no particular order.
Reflections
of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP,
reflects on the personal side of being a doctor in a community
hospital in Atlanta.
Technology
in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP,
is interested in use of technology in education, social media and
networking, practice management and evidence-based medicine tools,
personal information and knowledge management.
White
Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a
practicing internist and teaching physician in Southeast Michigan.
The blog, which has been around in various forms since 2007, offers
musings on the intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
Other blogs of note:
American
Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green
Journal, the American Journal of Medicine publishes original clinical
articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its
subspecialities, both in academia and community-based practice.
Clinical
Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started
by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP Member, associate program director at New
York University Medical Center's internal medicine residency program.
Faculty, residents and students contribute case studies, mystery
quizzes, news, commentary and more.
Interact
MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept
industry money so he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed
space on the Internet for physicians to report and comment on the
medical news of the day.
PLoS
Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access
materials include a blog.
White
Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs
written by an emergency room physician.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home