Too busy to blog, but happier

... and this isn't going to be a long one, either. I just sent an email, and the signature at the bottom with my blog address on it alerted me to the fact that my blog is currently full of grumpy entries, which actually don't accurately reflect my current situation. So I felt I should rectify this by posting something happier.

Having said that, I don't really have time to post anything much... things are busy. The Roman Satire subject I am doing for the Arts part of my degree is quite slack for most of the semester, save a couple of weeks in the middle and at the end. Well, here is the middle - I have to give a presentation on Wednesday, and I haven't even finished translating the lines I'm meant to be speaking on. I'll have to get onto that tonight, because I have orchestra tomorrow evening and will be back quite late and tired. Then, I have to write up my presentation into a 1200 word essay by next Wednesday. And after that, I'll have to do some catchup med!

I feel as if I'm always doing catchup med. The Neuro block finished a week ago, but I'm yet to look through most of the notes I took. Plagued by discontent with medicine, and frustration and fatigue from the long hours, I did hardly any study on weeknights and weekends, or at least, not nearly enough to keep up with what I felt I should have been doing. Our new block is ID/oncology/haematology/breast, and while the timetable is much less strenuous (which makes me a happier person!) there is still lots to learn, perhaps more (as neuro is one of my stronger areas). I guess medicine is always going to be like this! I have to accept that I'm not always going to be completely on top of things, and feel in control etc, like I did in years 11 and 12. But I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I should also say that I'm a lot more content with medicine than I was a few weeks ago. I really had some dejected days, absolutely hating the hours, the people, and med itself, and began seriously to consider 'doing something else' if I wasn't happy with intern year. But that has been resolving. A medical careers info session made me more aware of the diversity of possibilities within medicine - so that if I didn't want to be a surgeon or a physician with long hours, there are always the options of ophthalmology (which is extremely challenging to get into), pathology and GP. This last option I had always been loathe to consider, being a person who likes to rise to challenges and believing that GP was somehow a 'soft option', done by the people who for some reason or other weren't good enough to become a specialist. But the presentation by the GP representative made me aware of the challenges of being a good GP! - for example, unlike specialists who have referral letters for each patient, GPs have no idea who (and what medical problem) is going to walk through their door next! They also have a sustained relationship with their patients, thus there is potential for a greater sense of satisfaction, a feeling that they have done something for someone's life at the end of the day, rather than a hospital doctor who is just always pushing patients out the door to make room for new ones. The final attraction (for me) is the flexibility - GPs can choose their own hours, work 4 days a week if they choose, which is very different from the 6-day-a-week, 12-hour days that surgeons and many physicians keep.

We had a surgeon a few weeks ago who didn't turn up to a tute he was supposed to give us, at 7:30am. Upon coming to his replacement tute the following week, half an hour late at 8am, he apologised profusely for his lateness and said how bad he felt, then added, 'The only people who have been more grumpy than the medical students are my family.' That sentence has stuck in my memory... because that sentence is something I hope I will never have to say.

So, I'm not saying I'm going to become a GP, but that option is now there for me, and I think it's something I can be content with. (Although my parents probably won't. ;-p) Specialities like ophthalmology, and medical specialties like neurology, infectious diseases and paediatrics I also find interesting. I'm just saying that the future of a medical career looks a little brighter now, for me, than it did at many times in the last month.