stalling

Sometimes I get pretty close to being maxed out, where working more isn’t going to get me any farther.

I’m starting to have friends, to figure out the culture of this place, to figure out the hospital and how it works, to figure out the electronic medical record and how that works, and to figure out what kind of routine works for me.

After being so burned out in medical school, it is amazing to feel actually, for once, motivated. Catching up on all the reading I did not do during medical school, but I feel like I’m starting to approach the baseline I should’ve been at months ago. It is what it is. I am staying late in coming early so I have time to pre-round and read a little bit about things I do not know.  With enough time, I will catch up to where I should be.

It’s still weirds me out to call myself “Dr. ____.“

I finally realize that the medicine is challenging because it is about integrating information from multiple sources and modalities, compressing it, juggling multiple patients in my head, making decisions based on the diagnoses one infers from the information and then acting upon those diagnoses. There must be some physical skills one must be competent in also.

Everything will be OK. I’m going to learn how to do this eventually, and if I put enough work in, I’ll eventually learn the basics of things I need to learn.