It has been three months since my last blog entry, and I have to admit, I really miss writing. And you give time to things you miss. Hence, this is me finally breaking my blog hiatus. :)
I miss home. Mindoro home. And my Facebook news feed does not help this homesickness. Homesickness, I must have last felt when I was in high school, in my first few months of staying here in Manila. I miss medical school when your only problem was really passing your exams and the many extracurricular activities that come with wearing those white uniforms. I miss PGH, that all too familiar smell of the PGH hallways I never thought I'd actually miss. I miss internship when you feel like you thought you have a lot of responsibility only to realize that it was just really patikim come residency.
Ah. Residency. The main reason why I miss a lot of things and people. It has been three months since my first year MROD (Medicine Resident on Duty) life started. And basically here's what I've been trying to do for the past three months: Wake up, go to work, admit and see patients, make rounds with consultants, take care of concerns, endorse if not on duty or receive endorsements when on duty, take care of more concerns, admit and see more patients, do paperwork and do some more paperwork. Go home, sleep, eat if you can or if you choose to. Sounds tiring? It is. I never thought I'd actually feel more perpetually tired than I already am (Hello Vitamin D insufficiency). That feeling when the only thing you can do after being 36 hours awake is sleep and wake up again of course still tired to do again things that make you tired - sad right?
Yes there are a lot of things to be tired and to complain about - the routine and the many quirks of the system or of the people you work with. There are days when you would just want to stop and cry or dread the day before it is even starting.
But there's the other end of that spectrum as well.
When you wake up and be grateful that it is preduty day and you can actually stay at the hospital for less than 12 hours; or wake up on a duty day and appreciate that you need not brave the traffic since you dont need to go home until the next day (Of course, this is me being too positive). Best of all, wake up on a from duty day and be grateful that you had a nap with your duty mates, or had too much sleep cause your phone went dead or luckily because there were no concerns.
When you go to work and in my case have that 15 minute ride with my brother to listen to him talk about his job or actually just enjoy listening to Mo Twister.
When you see patients and actually help them feel better, or when they thank you and you can let out a happy sigh cause at least you know you are doing something right.
When you make rounds with consultants and you learn something.
When you take care of concerns and have healthy relationship with the other members of the health team - your consultants, fellows and seniors who have been always helpful and understanding and patient with your questions and often times mistakes, the nurses who feed you or shamelessly ask food from and can really make your MROD life easy, the pharmacists who guide you in what to write when you really don't know the medication doses, the ward clerks who remind you to sign a lot of papers, and all the other people in the hospital who would greet you a good morning with a smile to make you feel less like a zombie.
When you endorse and you realize that there are a lot of things that you need to improve on.
When you can eat especially with your batch mates, or your duty mates be it on a round table discussion, a conference, dinner outside or take outs from the different fast food joints around the hospital and just be really happy for food.
When you can sleep and savor that few hours of not thinking at all.
When you can go home and have your much needed alone time after a whole day or a two days worth of work.
I may be being too positive but in a kind of lifestyle where all your energy can get suck out of you, we need to stock up on the positive to continue doing what we are doing to reach those dreams. Everyday that I go to work in the hospital, no matter how tired I may be, that end goal is the only thing that lets me continue and try to do good.
It has been three months and I have a looooong way to go. It has been tiring and I know it will always be. There are days when everything that can go wrong will go wrong and that stopping seems like a reasonable option. There are also those rare days when you are actually feeling great even before a skeletal duty day is starting. And there are days like today, when you get to look at how things are and actually realize that most, if not all the time, it really is just in the perspective on how you would look and take things.
What matters most at the end of the day, is how you choose to take in life, how you choose to react, how you choose to see things. There's always a choice between perspectives and I've been praying since day one that He continuously help me make the right one every single day. :)
I miss home. Mindoro home. And my Facebook news feed does not help this homesickness. Homesickness, I must have last felt when I was in high school, in my first few months of staying here in Manila. I miss medical school when your only problem was really passing your exams and the many extracurricular activities that come with wearing those white uniforms. I miss PGH, that all too familiar smell of the PGH hallways I never thought I'd actually miss. I miss internship when you feel like you thought you have a lot of responsibility only to realize that it was just really patikim come residency.
Ah. Residency. The main reason why I miss a lot of things and people. It has been three months since my first year MROD (Medicine Resident on Duty) life started. And basically here's what I've been trying to do for the past three months: Wake up, go to work, admit and see patients, make rounds with consultants, take care of concerns, endorse if not on duty or receive endorsements when on duty, take care of more concerns, admit and see more patients, do paperwork and do some more paperwork. Go home, sleep, eat if you can or if you choose to. Sounds tiring? It is. I never thought I'd actually feel more perpetually tired than I already am (Hello Vitamin D insufficiency). That feeling when the only thing you can do after being 36 hours awake is sleep and wake up again of course still tired to do again things that make you tired - sad right?
Yes there are a lot of things to be tired and to complain about - the routine and the many quirks of the system or of the people you work with. There are days when you would just want to stop and cry or dread the day before it is even starting.
But there's the other end of that spectrum as well.
When you wake up and be grateful that it is preduty day and you can actually stay at the hospital for less than 12 hours; or wake up on a duty day and appreciate that you need not brave the traffic since you dont need to go home until the next day (Of course, this is me being too positive). Best of all, wake up on a from duty day and be grateful that you had a nap with your duty mates, or had too much sleep cause your phone went dead or luckily because there were no concerns.
When you go to work and in my case have that 15 minute ride with my brother to listen to him talk about his job or actually just enjoy listening to Mo Twister.
When you see patients and actually help them feel better, or when they thank you and you can let out a happy sigh cause at least you know you are doing something right.
When you make rounds with consultants and you learn something.
When you take care of concerns and have healthy relationship with the other members of the health team - your consultants, fellows and seniors who have been always helpful and understanding and patient with your questions and often times mistakes, the nurses who feed you or shamelessly ask food from and can really make your MROD life easy, the pharmacists who guide you in what to write when you really don't know the medication doses, the ward clerks who remind you to sign a lot of papers, and all the other people in the hospital who would greet you a good morning with a smile to make you feel less like a zombie.
When you endorse and you realize that there are a lot of things that you need to improve on.
When you can eat especially with your batch mates, or your duty mates be it on a round table discussion, a conference, dinner outside or take outs from the different fast food joints around the hospital and just be really happy for food.
When you can sleep and savor that few hours of not thinking at all.
When you can go home and have your much needed alone time after a whole day or a two days worth of work.
I may be being too positive but in a kind of lifestyle where all your energy can get suck out of you, we need to stock up on the positive to continue doing what we are doing to reach those dreams. Everyday that I go to work in the hospital, no matter how tired I may be, that end goal is the only thing that lets me continue and try to do good.
It has been three months and I have a looooong way to go. It has been tiring and I know it will always be. There are days when everything that can go wrong will go wrong and that stopping seems like a reasonable option. There are also those rare days when you are actually feeling great even before a skeletal duty day is starting. And there are days like today, when you get to look at how things are and actually realize that most, if not all the time, it really is just in the perspective on how you would look and take things.
What matters most at the end of the day, is how you choose to take in life, how you choose to react, how you choose to see things. There's always a choice between perspectives and I've been praying since day one that He continuously help me make the right one every single day. :)
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