Now What?

It has been an eventful summer. I went from signing up to be a junior infectious disease attending to two seasoned ID specialists to being the only infectious disease specialist upon my arrival. I am being bombarded with consults, requests for outpatient consults, requests to join countless committees, and “wouldn’t I take a quick look at this and that protocol to see if it requires any changes?”.

And let’s not even talk about H1N1 or the children I’m being asked to see. Somehow, somewhere, the fact that I am an adult infectious disease physician is lost on folks. Each time I am called to see a child I want to regurgitate to the pediatrician on the other end of the line “children are not little adults”, the mantra drilled into my head during my two month pediatrics rotation in medical school eons ago.

Amid all this I’ve tried to carve out time to study for the ID boards. That was a miserable experience. With that now behind me I’m still not sure whether I’m coming or going. This is such an odd feeling for someone who usually has things planned out. In hindsight, my mistake was thinking that I would just sacrifice my 20s for medical school, residency, and fellowship, and when all that was over I would be finally free to enjoy my life.

Little did I know that was not quite the end of the road. I’m not as bothered about finally being the one responsible for healthcare recommendations for the patient’s I encounter. I have always expected the transition from post-graduate training to attending to be an experience. And frankly, with no senior ID physician to guide me or frown on me this transition is going well considering. It has been frustrating but it helps that I feel really comfortable with the hospitalists and other medical staff. At least I’m not afraid to go to work nor am I miserable when I’m there.

No, the problem is when I return home…to me. I hate to admit it, but I’m missing people, my friends, my family, people, you know? Who knew that after all I am indeed human, a social creature like any other. By accepting this job I’ve purposely delayed the time to happiness another three years. 986 days, 8 hours, 43 minutes, and 42 seconds to be exact. Now who is kidding who?

I know that I don’t want to be here. I also know why I told myself to bite the bullet and why I dragged myself here. I know that I don’t want another winter of freezing cold, frozen fingers, and shovelling snow let alone three more winters. And if this was supposed to be the time that I began to concentrate on being a social being, well here’s to making that mission even more challenging.

But in life apparently we can’t always get what we want and when we do it’s certainly not handed to us on a golden platter. So now I have to turn this seemingly mini-hell, my “doing-time” experience, into paradise as I refuse to lose the next three years of my life to misery. Where to begin?