Week 9: First week of medicine!
Medicine... The centerpiece of clerkship year. Eight weeks, six days on and one day off, everything that isn't surgery, peds, ob/gyn, neuro, or psych is fair game - it's my chance to solidify my clinical thinking and conceptual frameworks for all things related to the heart, lungs, GI, renal, hematology, oncology, and the list goes on. It's long hours and lots of patient cases, more of a marathon than a sprint. But week one started off great - and I'm so excited for what's in store.
Monday 3/4
Today was a SLOW day. We started orientation at 8:30, took our time easing into the rotation and getting a thorough tour of the hospital as it relates to MED110. We met up with our team around 10:30 and just practiced using the EHR until noon conference. Our team seems super cool so far- Jerry and Belinda, our interns, tried dismissing us at 12PM LOL, and our sub I is an MS4 I remember from PTP last year! Noon conference was just for residents so we went up to the roof, we went back to see the team for a bit and ask more logistic questions, then had didactics until 2:30. I sorted out my parking situation after a bit of trouble (who KNEW that we could pay for parking online?), I hope I did it right. I got an unexpected early afternoon and got to take it easy for a BIT, had long phone calls with mom and dad separately and Jaaie too. I actually had a lot of fun reading up on my medicine materials. A really lovely evening. I expected to dive right in on day one like our peds rotations, but we have 6 weeks with the team so it makes sense that we’re not really in a rush. MED110 is definitely going to be the long haul. So many pearls to practice and goals to work on this rotation!
Tuesday 3/5
Started off the day with morning report, which everyone highly recommended. It was a case about HIV and opportunistic infections, and it was neat to hear from the residents and attendings. Rounds weren’t too long, and we had a few different people we had to meet up with along the way. Our team was really punctual which was kind of surprising but I really liked that we could be on time for our appointments. We went down to the ED to introduce ourselves to two new patients. One was an older Asian woman in her nineties who was recovering from a fall; she was hard of hearing, but once we started talking, she was so sweet and she was actually quite fit and agile. We had taken her socks off, and when we were leaving she mentioned that her feet get cold but it didn’t look like she was able to put them back on by herself. I slid her socks on, one foot at a time, and she said that she wasn’t used to being served by people. I gave her feet a gentle squeeze because that’s what we’re here for. The little things show that we care. Someone taught me to leave a patient’s room the way we found it, so I’ve been trying to keep a checklist of things to do before we leave. The other woman we saw had so many different issues, but we couldn’t even get into them, we had to focus on what brought her here and how we get her back to Laguna Honda.
Then we saw a vet who really wanted to return home even though home was not a safe option at all for him. Our attending was leading the conversation, and I thought I might be able to help so I joined in a little bit. After a few remarks, I sensed that Anna wanted me to step back so I did. Immediately I felt bad for crossing a line. But looking back, I'm glad that I gave it a try because making mistakes means that I'm putting myself out there. I don't want to spend the whole year being overly cautious or hesitant; of course, patient safety goes above all but this is the year to make mistakes and to learn from them and to own up to them. If I was too afraid to do things because I didn’t want to mess up, then I’m not training right. Mistakes mean I tried something. And they’re a chance to practice dusting myself off and not ruminating. What’s done is done, there was no damage this time, and I’ll know better in the future.
Monday 3/4
Today was a SLOW day. We started orientation at 8:30, took our time easing into the rotation and getting a thorough tour of the hospital as it relates to MED110. We met up with our team around 10:30 and just practiced using the EHR until noon conference. Our team seems super cool so far- Jerry and Belinda, our interns, tried dismissing us at 12PM LOL, and our sub I is an MS4 I remember from PTP last year! Noon conference was just for residents so we went up to the roof, we went back to see the team for a bit and ask more logistic questions, then had didactics until 2:30. I sorted out my parking situation after a bit of trouble (who KNEW that we could pay for parking online?), I hope I did it right. I got an unexpected early afternoon and got to take it easy for a BIT, had long phone calls with mom and dad separately and Jaaie too. I actually had a lot of fun reading up on my medicine materials. A really lovely evening. I expected to dive right in on day one like our peds rotations, but we have 6 weeks with the team so it makes sense that we’re not really in a rush. MED110 is definitely going to be the long haul. So many pearls to practice and goals to work on this rotation!
Tuesday 3/5
Started off the day with morning report, which everyone highly recommended. It was a case about HIV and opportunistic infections, and it was neat to hear from the residents and attendings. Rounds weren’t too long, and we had a few different people we had to meet up with along the way. Our team was really punctual which was kind of surprising but I really liked that we could be on time for our appointments. We went down to the ED to introduce ourselves to two new patients. One was an older Asian woman in her nineties who was recovering from a fall; she was hard of hearing, but once we started talking, she was so sweet and she was actually quite fit and agile. We had taken her socks off, and when we were leaving she mentioned that her feet get cold but it didn’t look like she was able to put them back on by herself. I slid her socks on, one foot at a time, and she said that she wasn’t used to being served by people. I gave her feet a gentle squeeze because that’s what we’re here for. The little things show that we care. Someone taught me to leave a patient’s room the way we found it, so I’ve been trying to keep a checklist of things to do before we leave. The other woman we saw had so many different issues, but we couldn’t even get into them, we had to focus on what brought her here and how we get her back to Laguna Honda.
Then we saw a vet who really wanted to return home even though home was not a safe option at all for him. Our attending was leading the conversation, and I thought I might be able to help so I joined in a little bit. After a few remarks, I sensed that Anna wanted me to step back so I did. Immediately I felt bad for crossing a line. But looking back, I'm glad that I gave it a try because making mistakes means that I'm putting myself out there. I don't want to spend the whole year being overly cautious or hesitant; of course, patient safety goes above all but this is the year to make mistakes and to learn from them and to own up to them. If I was too afraid to do things because I didn’t want to mess up, then I’m not training right. Mistakes mean I tried something. And they’re a chance to practice dusting myself off and not ruminating. What’s done is done, there was no damage this time, and I’ll know better in the future.
Later that afternoon, Anna made time to meet with me one on one about my goals for the rotation, and I apologized for earlier; she said she wasn’t bothered by it but wanted me to be careful on other rotations that had a stricter sense of hierarchy. She was so warm and sensitive, and I'm glad we got to discuss that moment. We also talked about conservatorship for a while; I've heard a lot about the downsides to SB1045 but haven't seen any of the potential benefits until today... We had a gracious discussion about the challenges of taking away someone’s rights but also how our threshold for autonomy may be hurting our patients. There’s a lot of gray areas, and I don’t want to stick so tight to my preconceived views that I'm not open to learning from the clinicians who care for people who might benefit from SB1045. I want to lean in to what medicine folks see every day and understand their perspective while also finding ways to reconcile it with a more just world for our most vulnerable.
I feel like we had more downtime than I was used to from peds. I wanted to help with little tasks but our senior Eric insisted that we just read up on our patients. My patient has SO many chronic health issues and a few very serious acute ones; he’s also an artist and a sweetheart. There’s a lot to unpack so the time I spent looking over his past notes and labs and imaging and orders and meds wasn’t nearly enough to really get started. Noon conference was a grand rounds (with burritos for lunch!) on vasculitis. We have a short break between noon and didactics where Eric our senior gave us a little introduction and told us about expectations; he wants us to be on time and excited to learn, to know our patients in and out. He wants to be a coach, not a critic. Afternoon didactics were solid, PMT and I made eye contact a few times at the ridiculous mnemonics for remembering acid-base disorders. I definitely wanna get good at eyeballing these values and just knowing what’s going on!
Wednesday 3/6
I feel like I don’t have much to say about today! It was a nice day, some quality time with friends. The rain was rude. FCM seminar was fine, we had an amazing set of kidney lectures from Igor and Leticia, we had a lunch with the deans who I feel like really care about us and were so curious to hear about how rotations have been! Afternoon small group on heme was fun too, I liked our small group! The shuttle ride back was sweet, like ten of us were all facing each other in the back of shuttle and it was a fun conversation. We made a lil stop to see our queen Hallen once we got back to Parn. Took the bus on the way back bc of the rain.
I was talking to Smrithi a bit about fourth year electives. I really want to do one on a reservation with IHS, indigenous culture is so interesting to me and there’s a lot of really unjust history there. I’ve heard some reservations can feel like developing countries because of the legacy of disinvestment from the government. I also want to do a wilderness medicine elective in Fresno. Part of it is because I’ll probably never do this type of stuff again, part of me is drawn to these situations where I have a little bit of clinical knowledge by know and I get to apply it to challenging situations with limited resources. And these feel a little bit like my vision of “old school medicine”. I also would love to do an ultrasound elective to get more comfortable with POCUS and a physical exam elective if there’s one of those. I’ve all but decided to be an abortion provider so if there’s an abortion care elective, then I’d love to do that too. Will I have time for all of these between sub-Is and interviews? I HOPE SO. Anyways, listing these things out to Smrithi made me realize that maybe I’m a little more adventurous than I give myself credit for. I like exploring new things, I don’t love taking unnecessary risks but I know there’s a lot of wonder and excitement in being outside of my comfort zone so I’m drawn to these experiences.
I need a better routine when I get home because I feel like an hour will go by and all I’ve done is mindlessly wander through social media. I think some days are more productive than others, I’m glad I did my UWorld questions earlier today and I still got some solid reading and learning in, just not as much as I had hoped. It is what it is, eating dinner and going to sleep is definitely a better use of my time now than trying to work on more stuff! Tomorrow is my first long call day – woo hoo looking forward to it!!!
Thursday 3/7
My very first call day! I had a solid workout and prepped all my foods, had an easy drive in. Pretty much as soon as I got to general, my intern Jerry texted me asking if I wanted to see a patient in the ED with him. On our distribution email that morning, I read one-liner about a patient with sickle cell anemia and was instantly curious about his case. That Jerry was staffing him and bringing me along felt so serendipitous! We had some time to chat with our guy, it was hard to piece together the story and he was in a LOT of pain, but I liked him.
Wednesday 3/6
I feel like I don’t have much to say about today! It was a nice day, some quality time with friends. The rain was rude. FCM seminar was fine, we had an amazing set of kidney lectures from Igor and Leticia, we had a lunch with the deans who I feel like really care about us and were so curious to hear about how rotations have been! Afternoon small group on heme was fun too, I liked our small group! The shuttle ride back was sweet, like ten of us were all facing each other in the back of shuttle and it was a fun conversation. We made a lil stop to see our queen Hallen once we got back to Parn. Took the bus on the way back bc of the rain.
I was talking to Smrithi a bit about fourth year electives. I really want to do one on a reservation with IHS, indigenous culture is so interesting to me and there’s a lot of really unjust history there. I’ve heard some reservations can feel like developing countries because of the legacy of disinvestment from the government. I also want to do a wilderness medicine elective in Fresno. Part of it is because I’ll probably never do this type of stuff again, part of me is drawn to these situations where I have a little bit of clinical knowledge by know and I get to apply it to challenging situations with limited resources. And these feel a little bit like my vision of “old school medicine”. I also would love to do an ultrasound elective to get more comfortable with POCUS and a physical exam elective if there’s one of those. I’ve all but decided to be an abortion provider so if there’s an abortion care elective, then I’d love to do that too. Will I have time for all of these between sub-Is and interviews? I HOPE SO. Anyways, listing these things out to Smrithi made me realize that maybe I’m a little more adventurous than I give myself credit for. I like exploring new things, I don’t love taking unnecessary risks but I know there’s a lot of wonder and excitement in being outside of my comfort zone so I’m drawn to these experiences.
I need a better routine when I get home because I feel like an hour will go by and all I’ve done is mindlessly wander through social media. I think some days are more productive than others, I’m glad I did my UWorld questions earlier today and I still got some solid reading and learning in, just not as much as I had hoped. It is what it is, eating dinner and going to sleep is definitely a better use of my time now than trying to work on more stuff! Tomorrow is my first long call day – woo hoo looking forward to it!!!
Thursday 3/7
My very first call day! I had a solid workout and prepped all my foods, had an easy drive in. Pretty much as soon as I got to general, my intern Jerry texted me asking if I wanted to see a patient in the ED with him. On our distribution email that morning, I read one-liner about a patient with sickle cell anemia and was instantly curious about his case. That Jerry was staffing him and bringing me along felt so serendipitous! We had some time to chat with our guy, it was hard to piece together the story and he was in a LOT of pain, but I liked him.
We had to leave around 8:30 for rounds which flew by. Intern report was nice, I definitely need to read up on valvular heart disease though. I hung out with Jerry a bit afterwards and then went to lunch (which had not one or two but THREE tofu dishes oh my), afterwards I hashed out more of my note with Jerry and then went down to didactics which was a SUPER helpful overview of interpreting abnormal liver tests and thinking about liver disease broadly. The chief resident Jen who ran the session was such an expert on the topic, I love when people hand me concise and elegant frameworks for organizing knowledge. A big topic that came up today that was also part of our small group yesterday was the idea of compensation, how our body can make up for some of the damage and how when it can’t, things are so much worse. It’s a really helpful way of thinking about the progression of disease.
We capped on our admissions early, around 2 PM which means we don’t have to stay super late admitting people. In the afternoon, I hung out with our patient a little more. We had a lovely chat, he asked what I do with my day and what it’s like being a med student. I learned that he plays poker for fun and has 4 grandkids. He was definitely more comfortable and less in pain. He asked if I’d ever had a patient with sickle cell before, I told him he was my first. I asked what he thinks doctors should know about it, and he answered that the pain is SO real. He told me about times he was in devastating pain (sickle cell pain is some of the WORST) and how doctors didn’t believe him because he had a drug use history. He had to get clean for one year before the surgeons would operate on his hip which was so painful, it felt cruel to make him wait for so long. He also asked for juice, the ED was out so I snuck up to the postpartum pantry and took some of theirs… I felt a little bad but they had so MUCH of it and I just wanted to get my patient some juice! I saw Paul and Jose in the ED workroom when I was working on my note, they left for surgery and then Paul came back an hour later and I was STILL working on my note sos! There’s a lot of pieces to juggle. I don’t know how long I spent on that note. Towards the end, my head was pounding because I was thinking so hard. It’s actually not a bad headache, it feels great because I’m really stretching my mental capacity but it’s tiring. I found the team after and then we got dinner and hung out for a bit! I finished up my note and then practiced with our senior and then was out!!
Little moments of joy today: looking down on my perfectly painted nails, a smidge of traffic coming off the highway and getting a moment to just look at the distant landscape, with thousands of twinkling lights and being amazed by my city, seeing familiar faces in the hallways of SFGH!
Friday 3/8
Today was so wonderful. I had a little bit of a late start, but I’m so glad I did a full workout, and I didn’t hit traffic so I was at SFGH by 7 AM. I had time to pre-round and visit my patient, who recognized me and gave me solid updates from the night before. I slipped in for morning report but had to leave early because our senior wanted to see us at 8 AM and go over the presentation one last time. Our attending came in with some GOURMET bagels and cream cheese (she’s from the east coast and has high bagel standards so these were “not bad” to her). My presentation went well, I felt like I really knew my patient well and I could tie together the seemingly disparate clinical findings. My intern Jerry who is SO supportive reflected on how I spent a lot of time with our patient yesterday and uncovered some helpful history and how I had read up a lot on his condition and brought new things to consider when writing up the A&P. Our senior and attending said that it was concise and easy to follow which seems like steps in the right direction. After a bit of table rounding, we went down to the ED to visit some folks. I saw Toff for a minute but not enough time to catch up on all that’s happened since we last talked!
Our first patient was a sweet sweet guy who was really keeping up with what we were saying about all of his various follow up appointments, it was nice to see that he was picking up what we were putting out. Our next patient was really sick, definitely the sickest patient we have on our list right now. They had decompensated cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis (two topics we explored in depth at didactics yesterday!) but when we went into to see them, they were so out of it. We couldn’t even consent them for a procedure to drain their ascites. They had so many of the classic cirrhosis physical exam findings. And this observation is so unrelated I know, but they were beautiful. Like I wondered about another life, had they been born into different circumstances or a different family, a life where they didn’t live on the streets constantly exposed to substances, would they be like one of the kind affluent parents I saw during my pediatrics rotation at MB? They could have been. Another patient we saw in the ED had also had tough experiences with homelessness; he had had the flu for a few weeks and was sleeping in puddles. He doesn’t love the shelter system but he wanted anything more than going back to the streets. We had come in for a short visit but he really wanted to share what was on his mind, I could sense that the team was ready to step out and move onto our next patient but it was really sweet how we all stood there to bear witness. He thanked us warmly for providing him care, he said he’d been coming to SFGH since he was infant, before they had the new building and the old building, back when it was all brick. He told us he was a famous artist – we hear that a lot from our patients but we looked him up and turns out he actually is!! Pretty neat.
Noon conference was a super introductory overview to sexual and gender minority which was tbh not a lot of new information but they served TOFU BANH MI which is beautiful. Worked on some afternoon tasks. I was definitely trying to hide my yawns during didactics and was trying my best to stay engaged! Jerry tried to dismiss me after didactics ended at 2:30 but I still had tasks!! He helped me get in touch with our patient’s PCP and initiate a warm hand off because our guy is likely going home soon (yay! But sad I’ll miss it tomorrow!). I ended up leaving the hospital around 4 when the sun was still out, I drove to my fav TJ’s in town (and passed two other TJ’s on the way and another one on the way back).
One thing I’ll remember really clearly about this week is our attending Anna’s ritual at the end of patient visits. When she meets them for the first time, she either holds their hand or squeezes their shoulder and she says “It was really nice to meet you and I really hope you feel better soon” and she really means it. It’s like this beautiful pause in the middle of hectic mornings that for me, centers us back on why we’re all here. To make people feel cared for. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to show our patients how much we care, they don’t see all the work that happens behind the scenes. Someone once said “there’s no love, just proofs of love”, which I’m not sure how much I agree with but it raises a good point that we can’t expect people to just know that we love them without providing proof. And Anna’s practice is proof. It feels like a lovely meditative moment, and I want to start doing something like it for myself.
The sun was out to today and my mood was so different, I was thinking about going to the park and dance class and even going out tonight and working at a café and all the possibilities, I wasn’t sad when the weather was dreary but I didn’t feel like doing things or leaving the house, I was content to stay in. The sun today made me want to do everything, thinking about clear skies and sunshine makes me so happy, it was my first time driving in the sunlight today in a while. I need to live in a place that has a lot of sunshine I’ve realized. I think living in a city without that would take a real toll on my energy.
During noon conference I saw an email about two armed robberies happening on our street at 6 and 6:30 AM, around the time we all leave the house. I was rattled. It felt like I just barely missed it by running a little behind schedule. After thinking it over though, it feels like such a random event. I’ve always felt safe in the neighborhood, and I don’t want this kind of news to take that sense of stability from me. Also crimes rarely happen twice in the same area right? There may have been more to the story. And there’s no reason to live life in fear of what could happen, if something happens all I can do is be alert and have some presence of mind, but I can’t stop my morning routine of walking to my car before the sun rises because of one event. I hope that we feel more peace in the coming days and that this situation doesn’t stay on my mind too much longer. Now that it’s evening time, I haven’t thought much about it at all which is nice.
Okay one last thing! Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY and I do appreciate all of the posts but it’s just not a day that I get super pumped about, and I’m not sure why! I feel like part of it is that I try to celebrate women every day and having a holiday makes it feel like today’s the only real day to do that? Which I know isn’t true. Maybe because it’s hard to even know where to start listing off the women who have shaped me, who I admire and aspire to be like, who I love and laugh with. It just feels like a regular old day to me because I’m constantly surrounded with uplifting women, so it’s hard to say what I’d do differently today other than a social media post which I’ve been less interested in making overall in recent days.
Saturday 3/9
There’s something about having a one day weekend that makes me want to make the most of it. I knew that if I didn’t make plans, I’d stay inside all day because of the dreary weather BUT I booked a stretching class on ClassPass for 10:30 this morning – and I got my roommates to come! Before we left, I folded my laundry and did my small meal prep tasks for the week and didn’t have to pick out my outfits because my team just wears scrubs all the time. It felt great to have my domestic tasks done before 9 AM this morning.
Stretching class was beautiful, I learned some great techniques. It was wonderful to just focus on isolated parts of my body and roll out the tension. Our instructor asked us what worries we’re holding inside our bodies? I’m not sure if I can articulate which ones but there are definitely a few. It was a restorative hour. We went to Squat and Gobble down the street right after, I had an amazing veggie fajita crepe and had bites of Aish’s French toast and Smrithi’s pancakes. We went to a cute lil SF coffee shop (Chestnut Street Roastery) and there’s something about working side by side with peers that keeps me really on task. The afternoon was super productive, and I had some time to write, watching people walk down Chestnut Street past our window table. We strolled around Cow Hollow for bit, walked up to the water near the pier, and then picked up some dinner to go at ASIAN BOX. It was a really lovely day, super productive but also restorative. Feeling good going into this 6 day week now, ready for week 2!
We capped on our admissions early, around 2 PM which means we don’t have to stay super late admitting people. In the afternoon, I hung out with our patient a little more. We had a lovely chat, he asked what I do with my day and what it’s like being a med student. I learned that he plays poker for fun and has 4 grandkids. He was definitely more comfortable and less in pain. He asked if I’d ever had a patient with sickle cell before, I told him he was my first. I asked what he thinks doctors should know about it, and he answered that the pain is SO real. He told me about times he was in devastating pain (sickle cell pain is some of the WORST) and how doctors didn’t believe him because he had a drug use history. He had to get clean for one year before the surgeons would operate on his hip which was so painful, it felt cruel to make him wait for so long. He also asked for juice, the ED was out so I snuck up to the postpartum pantry and took some of theirs… I felt a little bad but they had so MUCH of it and I just wanted to get my patient some juice! I saw Paul and Jose in the ED workroom when I was working on my note, they left for surgery and then Paul came back an hour later and I was STILL working on my note sos! There’s a lot of pieces to juggle. I don’t know how long I spent on that note. Towards the end, my head was pounding because I was thinking so hard. It’s actually not a bad headache, it feels great because I’m really stretching my mental capacity but it’s tiring. I found the team after and then we got dinner and hung out for a bit! I finished up my note and then practiced with our senior and then was out!!
Little moments of joy today: looking down on my perfectly painted nails, a smidge of traffic coming off the highway and getting a moment to just look at the distant landscape, with thousands of twinkling lights and being amazed by my city, seeing familiar faces in the hallways of SFGH!
Friday 3/8
Today was so wonderful. I had a little bit of a late start, but I’m so glad I did a full workout, and I didn’t hit traffic so I was at SFGH by 7 AM. I had time to pre-round and visit my patient, who recognized me and gave me solid updates from the night before. I slipped in for morning report but had to leave early because our senior wanted to see us at 8 AM and go over the presentation one last time. Our attending came in with some GOURMET bagels and cream cheese (she’s from the east coast and has high bagel standards so these were “not bad” to her). My presentation went well, I felt like I really knew my patient well and I could tie together the seemingly disparate clinical findings. My intern Jerry who is SO supportive reflected on how I spent a lot of time with our patient yesterday and uncovered some helpful history and how I had read up a lot on his condition and brought new things to consider when writing up the A&P. Our senior and attending said that it was concise and easy to follow which seems like steps in the right direction. After a bit of table rounding, we went down to the ED to visit some folks. I saw Toff for a minute but not enough time to catch up on all that’s happened since we last talked!
Our first patient was a sweet sweet guy who was really keeping up with what we were saying about all of his various follow up appointments, it was nice to see that he was picking up what we were putting out. Our next patient was really sick, definitely the sickest patient we have on our list right now. They had decompensated cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis (two topics we explored in depth at didactics yesterday!) but when we went into to see them, they were so out of it. We couldn’t even consent them for a procedure to drain their ascites. They had so many of the classic cirrhosis physical exam findings. And this observation is so unrelated I know, but they were beautiful. Like I wondered about another life, had they been born into different circumstances or a different family, a life where they didn’t live on the streets constantly exposed to substances, would they be like one of the kind affluent parents I saw during my pediatrics rotation at MB? They could have been. Another patient we saw in the ED had also had tough experiences with homelessness; he had had the flu for a few weeks and was sleeping in puddles. He doesn’t love the shelter system but he wanted anything more than going back to the streets. We had come in for a short visit but he really wanted to share what was on his mind, I could sense that the team was ready to step out and move onto our next patient but it was really sweet how we all stood there to bear witness. He thanked us warmly for providing him care, he said he’d been coming to SFGH since he was infant, before they had the new building and the old building, back when it was all brick. He told us he was a famous artist – we hear that a lot from our patients but we looked him up and turns out he actually is!! Pretty neat.
Noon conference was a super introductory overview to sexual and gender minority which was tbh not a lot of new information but they served TOFU BANH MI which is beautiful. Worked on some afternoon tasks. I was definitely trying to hide my yawns during didactics and was trying my best to stay engaged! Jerry tried to dismiss me after didactics ended at 2:30 but I still had tasks!! He helped me get in touch with our patient’s PCP and initiate a warm hand off because our guy is likely going home soon (yay! But sad I’ll miss it tomorrow!). I ended up leaving the hospital around 4 when the sun was still out, I drove to my fav TJ’s in town (and passed two other TJ’s on the way and another one on the way back).
One thing I’ll remember really clearly about this week is our attending Anna’s ritual at the end of patient visits. When she meets them for the first time, she either holds their hand or squeezes their shoulder and she says “It was really nice to meet you and I really hope you feel better soon” and she really means it. It’s like this beautiful pause in the middle of hectic mornings that for me, centers us back on why we’re all here. To make people feel cared for. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to show our patients how much we care, they don’t see all the work that happens behind the scenes. Someone once said “there’s no love, just proofs of love”, which I’m not sure how much I agree with but it raises a good point that we can’t expect people to just know that we love them without providing proof. And Anna’s practice is proof. It feels like a lovely meditative moment, and I want to start doing something like it for myself.
The sun was out to today and my mood was so different, I was thinking about going to the park and dance class and even going out tonight and working at a café and all the possibilities, I wasn’t sad when the weather was dreary but I didn’t feel like doing things or leaving the house, I was content to stay in. The sun today made me want to do everything, thinking about clear skies and sunshine makes me so happy, it was my first time driving in the sunlight today in a while. I need to live in a place that has a lot of sunshine I’ve realized. I think living in a city without that would take a real toll on my energy.
During noon conference I saw an email about two armed robberies happening on our street at 6 and 6:30 AM, around the time we all leave the house. I was rattled. It felt like I just barely missed it by running a little behind schedule. After thinking it over though, it feels like such a random event. I’ve always felt safe in the neighborhood, and I don’t want this kind of news to take that sense of stability from me. Also crimes rarely happen twice in the same area right? There may have been more to the story. And there’s no reason to live life in fear of what could happen, if something happens all I can do is be alert and have some presence of mind, but I can’t stop my morning routine of walking to my car before the sun rises because of one event. I hope that we feel more peace in the coming days and that this situation doesn’t stay on my mind too much longer. Now that it’s evening time, I haven’t thought much about it at all which is nice.
Okay one last thing! Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY and I do appreciate all of the posts but it’s just not a day that I get super pumped about, and I’m not sure why! I feel like part of it is that I try to celebrate women every day and having a holiday makes it feel like today’s the only real day to do that? Which I know isn’t true. Maybe because it’s hard to even know where to start listing off the women who have shaped me, who I admire and aspire to be like, who I love and laugh with. It just feels like a regular old day to me because I’m constantly surrounded with uplifting women, so it’s hard to say what I’d do differently today other than a social media post which I’ve been less interested in making overall in recent days.
Saturday 3/9
There’s something about having a one day weekend that makes me want to make the most of it. I knew that if I didn’t make plans, I’d stay inside all day because of the dreary weather BUT I booked a stretching class on ClassPass for 10:30 this morning – and I got my roommates to come! Before we left, I folded my laundry and did my small meal prep tasks for the week and didn’t have to pick out my outfits because my team just wears scrubs all the time. It felt great to have my domestic tasks done before 9 AM this morning.
Stretching class was beautiful, I learned some great techniques. It was wonderful to just focus on isolated parts of my body and roll out the tension. Our instructor asked us what worries we’re holding inside our bodies? I’m not sure if I can articulate which ones but there are definitely a few. It was a restorative hour. We went to Squat and Gobble down the street right after, I had an amazing veggie fajita crepe and had bites of Aish’s French toast and Smrithi’s pancakes. We went to a cute lil SF coffee shop (Chestnut Street Roastery) and there’s something about working side by side with peers that keeps me really on task. The afternoon was super productive, and I had some time to write, watching people walk down Chestnut Street past our window table. We strolled around Cow Hollow for bit, walked up to the water near the pier, and then picked up some dinner to go at ASIAN BOX. It was a really lovely day, super productive but also restorative. Feeling good going into this 6 day week now, ready for week 2!
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