the end of residency

I have a lot to say about completing my residency, but am feeling a little too under the weather to get into much. But wanted to put down some initial thoughts.

Residency was very hard for me, and I think there were a lot of things I feel I could have handled and balanced better. At the same time, as I am enjoying my time off in which I indulge in everything-for-me, I find myself increasingly grateful for three years dedicated to things outside of myself. Throughout it I felt that it was inhuman to force us to be so inattentive to ourselves. I still think this is true, but perhaps to a lesser degree as I think about how amazing it was to be so attentive to others.

During my time off since residency, I have been doing everything that I love and that had shaped my sense of self before residency. I've been active, going to yoga and climbing almost every day, running and swimming outside. I've indulged in the art of creativity of others, listening to hours and hours of music and audiobooks on end. I've been healthy, cooking meals and hydrating myself. I've gotten back into the flexible mindset of being able to travel, which I did in residency but always felt too narrow slipped between weeks of exhaustion. I'm looking forward to all the outdoors and travel I get to do this summer: lush Vermont and New York with M, Denver with my family, and a hiking/camping trip to Iceland with my brother.

I know too that as I throw myself into this, I'll wind down and find a place between these two extremes. This feels like a necessary time after a lot of sacrifice. And the sacrifice wasn't just of stuff-for-me; I was disappointed in how it also felt that I sacrificed some of my interests in medicine in order to do it. In medical school I was interested in geriatrics, palliative care, research and policy. In residency, I sought out very little outside of what I needed to do on a daily basis, and when I did have more time I spent it, reasonably and unregrettably, on the personal aspects of my life. So I hope that after some recovery I will be able to not only re-incorporate aspects of my outside-of-medicine life back into my identity but also revive the inside-of-medicine elements that drew me to it in the first place.

Throughout residency I felt moments of excitement about my growth as a physician, and moments of sadness over sometimes losing my sense of self. Looking back, this was most definitely a singular experience in which I lived what it was like to really put others first. I don't think it should be at the cost of one's own well-being, but it is true that you can go farther for others than you think and I feel incredibly full that I was pushed and was surrounded by others committed to the same. I'm glad that it's over, and I'm glad that it happened.