Jonathan Schwartz, M.D., currently is serving as a Chief Medical Resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver and will begin a fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease after his chief resident year.
Learn more about Insights on Residency Training.
(8 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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Anyone involved in academic medicine probably is aware of the new ACGME duty-hour restrictions that went into effect on 7/1/2011. For those of you who aren’t, the new guidelines state that PGY1 residents cannot work for longer than 16 hours straight. If they do work longer, they require strategic uninterrupted naps. The restrictions on PGY2 and PGY3 residents are less stringent, but the total consecutive hours that a PGY2 (and beyond) can work was lowered from 30 to 28. One other change is that residents are mandated to have 8 hours off, and recommended to have 10 hours off, between shifts. As one of the chief residents when this change occurred, I really want to share my thoughts about it.
For our program, these new rules have meant a transition to shift work on all days of the week. We have had night float for the past 5 or 6 years, but we had overnight “long” calls during the weekends. I can see both good and bad things about this new call change. We avoid some resident fatigue, because interns work only 16 hours maximum. The problem is that, in order to accommodate for the shifts, giving interns an entire weekend off is very difficult. The Golden Weekend is becoming somewhat of a myth to our intern class. Transitioning to a shift-based call system also points out major flaws in our handoff process. We have noticed that our “checkouts”/handoffs were not relaying the needed information and, as a program, we’ve been trying various things to improve this process.
One thing I ask of every resident reading this page is — be nice to your chief resident! We didn’t make this rule, nor did we have any input into the decision, but we have to enforce it. The more restrictions that the ACGME puts on resident work hours, the more complaints I hear from attending physicians about having to pick up the slack. We often do not have the manpower to ensure that every service will have a “full team” of interns and residents to complete daily work, and we have to rely on staff physicians to fill the service gap.
Our job to ensure that residents do not work more hours than they are allowed and, thus, avoid citations against our program. Problems arise mostly when residents who are on weekday call (which ends at 7PM for us) delay leaving because of notes, orders, or patient care issues. If a resident does not leave until 9 or 10PM, they cannot come back into the hospital until 7 or 8AM. This means that those residents probably have not seen all of their patients before rounds begin, and the responsibility falls on other residents or the attending physician. I realize that this issue is a culture shock for some of the older physicians who “used to walk to work in a foot of snow uphill both ways,” but these are the rules, and we all have to live by them. So, please, cut your chief a break!
(5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5) Loading ...
I always remember my mother trying to teach me things I didn’t agree with. Being the bigmouth that I was (am), I would voice my disagreement, and she would tell me that, one day, I would tell my kids the same thing. I, of course, did not agree. I felt the same way about some of the tedious things I learned to do in medical school. I didn’t understand why my attending always made me recheck blood pressures on patients when I saw them, after a nurse had already done that precise thing. I would recheck the blood pressure and mindlessly report the measurement back to my staff. I started noticing that the levels were usually lower when I checked them again in the room, and I thought this was because I was so good at checking them.
The study regarding clinic-based BP measurement discusses this issue in more detail. It states that many people who are diagnosed with hypertension by clinic-based measurements alone are not truly hypertensive. It proves the validity of “white coat hypertension” and the importance of serial blood pressure measurements prior to initiation of therapy. If patients are not truly hypertensive, we are putting them at risk for hypotension with BP-lowering medications and subjecting them to risk for adverse effects and the associated cost-burden.
I was recently in clinic and asked my student what a patient’s blood pressure was when she rechecked it in the room — to which my student rolled her eyes and went back to check. I had to laugh — I realize how things really do come full circle.
(7 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5) Loading ...
Hello Journal Watch readers! My name is Heidi Zook, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my thoughts and opinions with all of you for the next year. I am one of the current chief residents at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, so my viewpoint is that of a junior faculty, recent resident, and current chief resident. Just like our other chief resident blogger, Gopi Astik, I am a proud Kansas Citian. I grew up in Shawnee, Kansas, which is a suburb of Kansas City. For medical school, I attended the 6 year combined BS/MD program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I loved it so much that I stuck around for internal medicine residency and an additional year as a 4th-year chief resident. My training has taken place at two hospitals: Truman Medical Center, a county hospital serving the underprivileged, and Saint Luke’s Hospital, a nationally-recognized tertiary care center. I have had the opportunity through my training to see many types of patients, as well as many styles of communication and perspectives on healthcare.
During my time as a blogger, I hope to share my perspective as a fairly new physician, which I hope many of you will be able to relate to. We are all lucky to be able to combine science and art into our everyday practice as physicians. I want to discuss both the science that drives our clinical decision-making as well as the art that makes our jobs so enjoyable. One of my favorite patients during the course of my training was a 96-year-old man who was admitted to the hospital with acute and chronic systolic heart failure and a history of aortic valve replacement. He was very active and independent. He sat me down one day and said how thankful he was that he received an aortic valve replacement at the age of 92 because he had been having so much fun playing in his polka band for the past 4 years. That experience taught me that intervention isn’t always about age, but about functionality. It helped to mold me into the clinician that I am today. Please share some of your favorite patient encounters that taught you about how to practice medicine, how to communicate, or how to enjoy life!
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5) Loading ...Hello, everyone, my name is Gopi Astik, and I am one of the internal medicine chief residents at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Our program has 4th-year chiefs, so I have completed my residency and am excited to be able to share the experience of my transition from resident to new faculty with all of you. Even as I write that, I cannot believe that I am now a staff physician.
I should start by telling you a little about myself. I am from Warrensburg, Missouri, which is about an hour east of Kansas City. I went to the University of Missouri-Kansas City for the 6 year BA/MD program, and I graduated in 2008. I decided to stay close to home for my internal medicine residency and then decided to stay AGAIN for my chief residency. What can I say? I love Kansas City. Many of you probably haven’t been to this area, and I want to tell you that it’s a beautiful place with lots of things to do. It’s a big city with small town feel … but, then again, I’m extremely biased.
This photo is from the Country Club Plaza at Christmas time. The holiday lights are lit during a ceremony on Thanksgiving – it’s amazing! There’s more than this to Kansas City, but I’ll sprinkle the details around during my time as the resident blogger.
I plan on writing about how the articles in Journal Watch affect my clinical practice, along with giving my personal experiences of my chief residency. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions as well. If there’s anything in particular you would like to hear about, please share your questions and comments. I am eager to share my experiences with all of you!
(9 votes, average: 4.89 out of 5) Loading ...
Dr. Bergman Lewis is a senior resident in Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital. By way of introduction, I am finishing my pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital, have enjoyed being a resident editor of Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine for the past 3 years, and will write as an interim blogger for the next month or so. Greg left big shoes to fill but I’ll do my best to pave the way for the next resident blogger.
I am in the agitating phase of studying for a test — I am loosely aware of what looms ahead but have not strategically plunged into studying. The General Pediatrics Boards are about 5 weeks away. Similar to my view of all standardized tests, I’ve dreaded this test since the first time I heard about it. I have been trying — with varying levels of success — to adapt the “right” attitude: Focus more on learning material that I think a “good pediatrician” should know and less on being bitter about how much it costs. (The worst part about failing is that I’d have to pay again next year!)
Given my imminent trip back to the books, I have been reflecting on how learning happens in medical school and residency. Before I entered medical school, I was involved in launching a middle school where I taught sixth grade for 2 years. At the Seattle Girls’ School, we taught an integrated curriculum. For example, the first trimester’s theme was inventions, and core subjects like reading and math were taught under this umbrella theme. We explained to parents that by mirroring how we learn naturally, neural connections are made, and students stay passionate about learning.
When I entered medical school, I experienced an environment that was quite far from facilitating natural learning. In fact, the first year of medical school took the most natural “integrated curriculum,” — the human body — and artificially broke it down into histology, pathology, anatomy, and biochemistry. Without a strong science background or honed study skills, I struggled and barely eked by in my classes. It was not until clinical clerkships that I started to believe I might be smart enough to be a doctor. As I began caring for patients, the connections I couldn’t make from a PowerPoint presentation began to appear. I often wish I could go back to the first 2 years of medical school now that I have a scaffolding of patient encounters on which to hang my knowledge.
Learning in residency looks different than it did in medical school. For those like me who learn from hands-on patient interactions, there is endless material, but little time to process it. Although it may feel more comfortable to learn from a prepared noon conference lecture, do you learn more from the patient care call that causes you to leave the lecture? The answer to where this sweet spot of learning and hands-on experience lies is a moving target, and different for all of us.
The intensity at which our highest quality of learning occurs is another variable. Some of us may absorb information best when presenting a patient on rounds, voicing a plan despite being less experienced than anyone in the audience. For others, being in the hot seat short circuits all neural connections. During residency, I experienced some of my best learning when I was post-call on rounds but had gotten at least 30 minutes of sleep (this has interesting implications for new work hour restrictions that may take people off post-call rounds).
The fact is, we all learn differently and most of us spend much time worrying about if we are learning enough. If only we’d give ourselves a collective break. We are all naturally curious people who want to be the best doctors we can be. We cannot help but learn. We should have a bit more faith in the process and trust that when we’re spit out the other end of residency, we will have acquired enough knowledge to be good doctors.
Of course, our formal training represents the tip of the iceberg of what we will eventually learn. It does seem like developing good learning habits from the get-go is important. For this reason, in residency we should be paying as much attention to how we learn as what we learn. For what it’s worth, here’s some advice for learning that I wish I’d been given:
As residents, one thing we do is try hard. So, we will try hard to keep learning and trust that we are learning while caring for patients. Speaking of trying, I need to face the music and set up a study schedule for Boards so I can get it over with. I will try and stay focused with the right attitude and view studying as a last episode of a sitcom when I will revisit the patients I have encountered in training. Now, if I can just figure out the right soundtrack. . .
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...
When my daughter, Anya, was a few months old, I remember reading a blog post to my mom that I found when, for the first of many times, I Googled “baby bedtime routine.” One father wrote: “The solution to bedtime is that I crawl in the crib with my baby, then when she is asleep, I crawl out.” My mom and I laughed and rolled our eyes. Fast-forward 1 year and I’m blearily gazing into the crib, patting Anya to sleep, wondering if it would hold my weight. Sleep is only one area in which being a mom has humbled me and challenged the tenets of my pediatric education.
When the time to expand our family coincided with the last year of my residency, my husband and I knew it was not going to be easy. However, I did not foresee all the ways it would shape me as a physician. As a pediatrician-in-training, I knew the “right” advice to offer in each situation, but it turns out that the “right” advice carries little weight in the minute-to-minute nuances of parenting.
We found our stride as a family only when I started accepting that we would have our own unique challenges as well as our own solutions and started doing what worked for us. We hunkered down and my world became very narrow — hospital or home. My husband and I tried to listen to each other and tune out all the “shoulds” that made us feel inadequate. We were blessed to have local family and actually moved in with my mom for the year. The bills piled up and the voice mailbox filled. We co-slept, not for philosophical reasons, but because it felt necessary. I was tired and couldn’t spend the precious time at home with Anya listening to her cry from the other room. Anya stayed up late when I was on the wards and slept all afternoon with me post-call. When I was on nights, we took two daytime naps together. This was not the sleep-nap routine I had outlined for parents in clinic, but Anya’s adaptability gave us long hours together snug in bed, breast-feeding after 30 hours apart. By paying attention to Anya’s cues instead of outside advice, we found our own rhythm and Anya thrived — and my husband and I survived!
Once I became more comfortable in our own ever-changing “routine,” I began to recognize allies within medicine. I felt less isolated as I shared more about our solutions. After attending a Grand Rounds presented by the medical examiner on the dangers of co-sleeping, I sheepishly admitted to my intensive care attending that we spend the majority of time co-sleeping. “So do I,” she responded, “you have to when you’re away so much, right?” The fellow and the pharmacist both chimed in with their own stories of co-sleeping. It felt like we were talking about brewing gin during Prohibition.
My own experience adapting to motherhood while being a resident convinced me that our job as primary care doctors is to lay out the safe — but wide — framework within which patients can find their own path. It is tempting to preach guidelines and be quick with advice but more valuable to tailor our expertise to empower individuals to find their own way. Particularly in light of my experience as a parent, I will strive to have conversations with patient families that are nonjudgmental, honest, and practical.
I salute my fellow resident parents out there. Keep up the good work crafting a home life that is uniquely right for your family. I would love to hear your stories from the trenches.
(10 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...
Dr. Bergman Lewis is a senior resident in Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
By way of introduction, I am finishing my pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital, have enjoyed being a resident editor of Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine for the past 3 years, and will write as an interim blogger for the next month or so. Greg left big shoes to fill but I’ll do my best to pave the way for the next resident blogger.
Just over a year ago, my daughter Anya arrived and has made my residency experience both brighter and more challenging. Her arrival also left me with three extra rotations to make up for maternity leave. Starting in the fall, I will be doing locums work in two primary care clinics. So I stand with one foot in residency and one foot in the real world. It’s a unique vantage point and I appreciate the opportunity to share a few of my observations and would love to hear about yours.
When I realized that I had to extend my residency, I decided to take a month off while my classmates graduated. I spent the month preparing for my sister’s wedding, taking Anya to music class, and trying to be normal. It was fun – but not easy – to throw on the brakes after 7 years of working hard. But I adjusted, as did my loyal husband, and by the time I was starting to feel acclimated, it was time to go back to work. The weekend before returning, I felt nauseous most of the time. On Monday morning, I nursed my daughter while she was still asleep, put on my pager, and walked out the door.
I was starting an adolescent rotation in a gynecology clinic with an attending I had looked forward to working with. My mind was still at home as I followed her to see our first patient who turned out to be a patient I knew. She was a previously healthy 16-year-old who presented to the emergency department last year with fulminant meningococcemia. She sat before us in her electric wheel chair, status post four-limb amputation, reporting that she needed to be “checked out” as part of her evaluation for kidney transplant (she is dialysis dependent secondary to her horribly long illness). In this young woman’s many encounters with the medical world, she has never failed to amaze me by her optimistic and down-to-earth spirit. After rattling off the 15 medications she is taking, we chatted about how she hopes to couple a back-east college tour with a Make-A-Wish Foundation trip to meet Beyoncé in New York. She said she was scared to return to high school for the first time but relieved that her friends were still there. I walked out of the room feeling noticeably lighter. The sense of dread and apprehension I felt going back to work was replaced by inspiration from this resilient young person.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Justin Heistand
It is easy during residency to get bitter and complain — it is after all a difficult time — but it is not necessarily helpful. Throughout residency, patients such as this young women have restored my energy when I needed it most. This intimate human connection is what drew me to medicine and has kept me on this path. During my first rotation senioring on the wards, feeling somewhere between a secretary, tour guide, and camp counselor, I felt dull and tired. Only when I started seeing patients with the medical students did I get my spark back. For all of us, that spark is essential. For some, it may be cutting in surgery, while for others, it may be building a differential diagnosis on a puzzling patient. Whether you are an intern who is scared of making a mistake, a junior resident who is worried that you aren’t scared of making a mistake, or a senior resident who is pondering if you have learned anything at all, notice what recharges you and seek it out.
This photograph was taken by a fellow resident from our call room at Harborview Hospital, the county hospital where we do our rotation in pediatric burns and trauma. I have stared at this view post-call and find the majestic mountain steadying after a crazy night. Rounding during pre-dawn hours, we spend plenty of time in windowless rooms, but sometimes we happen upon a view that is magical. Staying charged can help you not miss the magical views when they come along.
I would love to hear what keeps you charged.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...First, Journal Watch would like to thank Dr. Greg Bratton for helping us to establish our Chief Resident blog. Greg has moved on to a Sports Medicine fellowship, but we’ll try to convince him to post his most interesting cases and insights as he continues his medical training.
Second, we’re very happy to announce that Dr. Gopi Astik and Dr. Heidi Zook, Chief Residents in Internal Medicine at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, will be our new bloggers. Starting in September 2011, Gopi and Heidi will offer their insights on the medical education experience and the challenges that residents and students face in incorporating evidence-based medicine into practice.
Finally, Dr. Sarah Lewis Bergman, a Senior Resident in Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a member of the Journal Watch Pediatrics editorial board, has kindly agreed to provide us with a taste of what life is like in this very important primary care field. She’ll be writing for the rest of the summer about her patients and experiences.
Please feel free to correspond with any of our resident bloggers by using the Comments feature at the end of each post.
(27 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...I did it. I graduated.
I remember in sixth grade writing a paper about wanting to grow up to be a doctor, and today, I can truly say, “I did it.”
Graduating from residency, beginning my fellowship, and completing my Family Medicine board exam has made me feel as if I have finally put the punctuation at the end of this journey’s sentence. And despite having 12 more months to learn and refine my skills in Sports Medicine and another board exam on the horizon, I feel free. Free from the feeling of swimming upstream, free from the fear of not making it, and free from not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
I know I will face more adversity, self-doubt, and obstacles in the future, but, right now, I am enjoying this feeling of accomplishment. For the first time in a long time, I can take a deep breath and relax.
However, I have to ask myself, “Why was the journey so hard and stressful?” Is it because I am a Type A personality that can make a massage stressful? Is it because the relationship medicine and I have is similar to that of a square peg and a round hole? Or is it because it really is just that difficult? I believe the latter.
So, in an effort to help ease the journey for others, I have compiled a Top 10 list of things I think can make the path to being a doctor a little more enjoyable and/or tolerable.
Here we go…
10. In college, major in something other than pre-med. You will learn enough science in medical school. Choose something like art, philosophy, or dance. It will expand your mind, and you will become well rounded and able to communicate with patients on a “natural” level.
9. Remember that, ultimately, you are a person first and a doctor second. Patients will relate to you. They will trust in your treatment plans and adhere to your recommendations. Find time to decompress. Take weekends off. Schedule date nights. Get involved with charities. Go fishing. Do something to keep in touch with who you are as a person. Don’t let medicine define you. You were John Doe before medical school, be John Doe after.
8. Date. Get married. Have children. Some say that it is too much to handle with studying, it is too expensive, or it is “just not the right time.” I disagree. I think it makes you better. Plus, no matter how hard of a day you’ve had or how grueling your week is, when you get home, someone is there to take your mind off of it. As a buddy of mine said after having his first son, “there are no more bad days.”
7. Read gossip magazines. After hours of memorizing Robbins Pathology or Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll need something to purge your brain. And what is better than keeping tabs on Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and all the other train wrecks in Hollywood?!?! In addition, it will help you understand the many psychiatric problems you will one day be diagnosing and treating.
6. While at dinner, no matter how many of your classmates or fellow residents are present, DO NOT TALK ABOUT MEDICINE!! It always happens — you go out for a relaxing evening and inevitably start talking about work. Don’t do it! It is not fair to the non-medical professionals listening. Instead, talk about sports, weather, or the latest happenings in US! Magazine (another reason #7 is so important).
5. Periodically, wear normal clothes. I think we all will agree that one of the benefits to working in a hospital is the that you can wear scrubs every day. But remember, scrubs are forgiving; they won’t let you know that you’re not tying the drawstring as tight as you used to. Whether you weigh 150 lbs or 180 lbs, you are still going to wear the same size scrubs. Put on your jeans — they will tell you the truth about your circumference.
4. Exercise. Endorphins are good. Plus it will counteract the late night Cheetos, pizza, and soda consumed while being on-call or studying. And before you say it, there is always time! Just find it.
3. Call home. Talk to your mom and dad, brother and sister, hometown friends. Just because you’re “in medical school” does not mean you get to stop being their son, sibling, or friend. They are your support. Use them, lean on them, involve them. And remember, you are where you are because of them.
2. Keep an open mind while doing 3rd-year rotations. Even if you think you know what you want to do, don’t force yourself to like it. Enter each rotation with an open mind. Go with your gut. I wanted to do orthopedics but found myself “tolerating” the OR, not loving it. Yet, I loved taking care of families, seeing the same patient routinely, and developing relationships with patients. So I chose Family Medicine. Had you told me during my 1st or 2nd year of medical school that I would end up doing primary care, I would have laughed at you. But I love it and can’t imagine doing anything else.
1. Take a deep breath and relax occasionally. Don’t be like me and wait until you receive your diploma to re-center yourself. Do it daily. Know that although the journey is long, it doesn’t have to be rushed. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the challenge. Realize that you, too, are on your way to achieving your dreams.
And, before you know it, your graduation day will be here.
The next chapter is frightening, but I’m ready, and you will be too. I don’t know where I will practice, what the government has in store for primary care, or how medicine will evolve, but it really doesn’t matter to me much right now. Today, I am happy. Today, I am free.
I did it. I graduated.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my thoughts and experiences during the last year. I’ve definitely enjoyed sharing them.
Greg Bratton
(33 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5) Loading ...I saw a patient while I was moonlighting the other night that actually made me question whether or not it was worth it to be a doctor.
The patient was a 56-year-old gentleman who presented to the emergency room complaining of neck pain. When I went to talk with him and learn more about his complaint, he told me that he had a history of neck pain and felt as if it was about to start “rebounding again.” He had no previous or recent injury to his neck, never underwent radiographs, and had no neurological symptoms, but some physician somewhere had felt it was appropriate to give him hydrocodone, and he had been treating his pain “effectively” with this medication ever since. He was taking no anti-inflammatories, had never seen a physical therapist, and had taken no other conservative measures to manage his pain. In fact, he had no primary care physician at all.
As we talked, it became blatantly clear that his “rebounding pain” was running in direct correlation with his dwindling hydrocodone prescription. I readily admit that I believe we, as a whole, under treat pain (for fear of inducing potential addiction, tolerance, and side effects), which is a disservice to our patients and their quality of life. However, as a sports medicine physician, I see my fair share of chronic musculoskeletal pain and, therefore, am comfortable with my treatment algorithm and with who qualifies for narcotic medications.
This guy did not require narcotics.
In further discussing his condition and my medical opinion that he needed to treat the ailment rather than masking it with pain meds, he became agitated (as you could imagine) and demanded hydrocodone. “I need hydrocodone 10/325 and I need a quantity of 30,” he emphatically stated. “It is the only thing that works.”
At this point my patience was wearing thin. Not only was this patient misusing the medical system by arriving at an emergency department for what appeared to be a medication refill, he was now attempting to bully me into prescribing him medication I did not feel was medically necessary. To make a long story short, I told the patient that this was not a negotiation and that I was going to treat him no differently than I treat any of my other patients. I stayed true to my clinical criteria for prescribing narcotics, and he left with a script for Mobic.
I was later informed by my nurse that, as he was leaving, he turned to her and asked, “What night does that doctor not work?” as if he was plotting his next attack.
I went back to my desk, irritated, and reflected about how I spent 4 years of medical school, incurred a large amount of debt, trudged through residency, sacrificed family time to extend my training through moonlighting, paid big bucks to take a board exam — not to mention the cost of licensing, DEA, and DPS numbers — and how it was all just lost on this patient because I was expected to do what he wanted.
And to be quite honest, it pissed me off.
There are people in our communities that have capitalized on physicians’ fears of litigation and willingness to practice defensive medicine to get what they want. They feel entitled when they are seen by a doctor. They “know” what is medically best. They aren’t coming to their appointments to get evaluated and treated, but rather, they are using the doctors as suppliers. They are successful because they instill a sense of “if you don’t do what I want, I will report you for failure to treat my pain adequately.”
And if this is how practicing medicine is going to evolve (insert political commentary here), then is it still worth it to be a doctor??
I had this question answered for me on Easter Sunday. I was enjoying a nice Easter service with my family. I had just returned to my pew after communion when, from the back of the sanctuary, a hysterical mother called out, “Is there a doctor in the house!?!?” A silence fell over the congregation and everyone stood frozen in their place — except for me. I arose from my pew and made my way to the mother.
As I approached the woman, I found her 14-year-old daughter lying horizontal on the wooden pew, pale and diaphoretic, with a confused and scared look on her face. She had passed out and was just awakening when I arrived. With the help of some other providers, we tended to the young girl, comforted the mom, and handled the situation appropriately.
Thankfully, the mother’s call for help was for something minor, but, to me, it was a major boost to my failing sense of purpose. To have my “name” called in a moment of personal despair and to realize that, in a gathering of 300 or more people, I was the only physician, made me feel as if being a physician still was something special.
So, is it worth it??
Yes, it’s priceless.
