Monday, February 17, 2014

Adjusting

Being a doctor is a strange sort of a thing.

Its the sort of a job that finds you writing posts at 2AM since this is the time I have to do them during a slow night shift at work.

It is the sort of a thing that gets other people saying how grateful they are for whatever it is that I did at that particular moment, when really I want to tell them "Honestly, I really did not do that much (if anything) and it really is not that spectacular".  And I don't mean that in the "I need to be humble" sort of a sense.  But of course that is not something that doctors say.

It is the sort of a thing that keeps you thinking every minute of every day about this or that patient, this or that blood test, or one of the 5 things that always seem to be overdue.  You are never off duty, even if you are off duty.  I'm constantly thinking about what patients should be doing for themselves and fretting over them, even (or perhaps especially) when they don't seem to be fret about themselves. And it seems to be getting more pronounced the farther along I get.