This harps on one of my main issues now. Working in a system where, by default, all of my patients are insured, goes against the grain of who I want to be taking care of. Ug. It's not entirely true, we cover a certain portion of patients who do have medicare or medicaid insurance... but they are in the minority.
My job is great. I work with a great group of hospitalists, who are all sympathetic-cynical, dedicated clinicians, who all support each other. We take care of a tremendous variety of patients, including some sick ICU patients. And we work in a hospital that is esthetically pleasing, has abundant technology, and has the happiest group of nurses I've ever seen. And I get to take care of kids, and adults. And they --pay-- me to do this. A helluva lot better than residency.
But there is something fucked up about having had one day off in the past 10 days. The balance between work, life, school, family, friends, and sleep is skewed.
"It's not a race, kid." That's the advice of one of the senior members of "The Old Curmudgeon Club" at work. It's a Club I'm trying to become a part of. It is a group of five or six senior male hospitalists who readily accept their title. And yes, I mean senior in the sense of age and experience. They claim that I am not grumpy or cynical enough, or that I am not old enough to be a member. So, I resort to calling myself a Junior Member of The Old Curmudgeon Club.
Maybe I hide it well. But I'm in a Rut.
I have these odd flashbacks (helped mostly because I am, in fact, living in Denver again). I feel like I'm in college again. I come home from the hospital to a stack of studying and stuff to do. Wow. I remember sitting in the Auraria Library back in 1995 wondering when the hell this student life would ever end. There was a burning desire to fast forward and get on with life, be done with school, and just --be-- a doctor.
And now, sixteen years later (SIXTEEN), I find myself in the same spot. The exact same spot. I just want to be done. I want my NGO job, in some foreign country, practicing the kind of medicine I love best, taking care of folks who have real struggles in life, and finding myself in a place where I don't give a shit that I have worked 9 of the past 10 days. But I know that time is a few years away. I think back to my Curmudgeon Mentor: "It's not a race, kid."
It's not a race... I am enjoying the steep learning curve of being an attending, I'm actually enjoying biostatistics (I can see the future utility of it), and my public health policy class...
But there I sat at Pablos... Unable to scratch the itch.... I need out. I'm concerned that I'll have to forfeit my April/May vacation (when I'm hoping to go to Port-au-Prince) to get other shit done. And then I started to have thoughts of wandering elsewhere. When the hell was the last time I just grabbed my pack, and found myself somewhere new? Maybe I need a real break. Somewhere... Just get on a plane, grab a Lonely Planet, and rekindle some inner sanctum.
As I was finishing my coffee, pondering where to go, I reminisced to my Jo'burg days, being introduced to great African Coffees, thinking of my trip to Ethiopia, and wondering about Yemen.. And thinking about one of my top 5 cups of coffee ever.. That being the Yemen Roast from Blue Bottle Coffee Company (read my "Not Settling" post). And that is when I realized that I needed to be "picked up by the lapels, shaken, then tossed into a grimy Manhattan snow bank."
And I reread that post... I wrote it 4 years, 2 days, and 29 minutes ago.
I could have written that post today. It seems I'm repeating the same themes in life these days.
Off to Yemen. Maybe just coffee. Maybe a trip.
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