Author: nanimov

Rough

Past couple days of my 10 task challenge have been a little rough. Not because the tasks feel hard, but because there have other things going on in my life unrelated to the tasks; spending time with friends and family, driving homes, Thanksgiving stuff. The things about 10 tasks is that it doesn’t leave a lot of room for flexibility, but maybe thats’s more of an issue of the choice of tasks. I think the exercise is still valuable, but I think part of the practice is practicing self-compassion when you fall a little short on the stuff you set out to do.

Thanksgiving 2022

It’s a kind of wild to think about what Thanksgiving was like just 1 year ago. I have so much in my life to be thankful for, and even though we should be thankful for our good fortunes everyday, I for one am glad that there is a day (any kind of controversy/mythology aside) where people are encouraged to take a pause, perhaps in the mayhem of travel, family drama, and food comas, even if for at least a brief moment, on the things that make life worth living.

Surgery – Day 11

It was my last day on the HBS service and in a few days I start acute care surgery with a 28 hour call shift. I enjoyed my time on this service, but also kinda glad it wasn’t longer than it was. Similarly I’m looking forward to all the interesting things I’m going to see on ACS and the once-in-a-lifetime experiences I will have.

Surgery – Day 10

I did not think this was how I was going to spend today. The surgery gods graciously decided to usher me into my late twenties with a literal surprise Whipple procedure. The case started a little later than usual and was supposed to be just a relatively standard liver resection, but after we got in there the disease appeared to be more extensive than we thought and so we had to convert to the Whipple. Thankfully, I feel like it moved pretty quick for a this kind of procedure, only about 8-9 hours (compared to the 10-12 nightmares I’ve heard of). While it was a long time to stand and mostly just watch, it honestly didn’t feel like it was as long as it was in reality. It was fascinating to watch and it’s always cool to see things that you usually only see in textbooks fleshed out. Don’t get me wrong, if I had it my way, I probably would not attend another one, but I’m glad I was able to experience the whole thing at least once. Very thankful for my attending and especially my resident for their patiences and letting me participate. Very thankful to all the nurses and the scrub techs for their patience as well. Sending the patient all the best in their recovery and future treatment.

Anyways I’m tired, more thoughts on this tomorrow maybe.

Surgery – Day 9

Being a non-native English speaker undergoing surgery in a predominantly English-speaking hospital must be scary, even more so than any other hospitalization. You are undergoing a major invasive procedure and you can’t even properly communicate with the person who is going to be cutting into you. Even though interpreter services are available, as good as they are I’m sure there are things that get lost in translation or simply omitted, and there is no way for the physician to verify or clarify since there is no way for them to know if a mistranslation occurred. On top of that, working through interpreter services makes a patient encounter take double the time as it is so there is some pressure, even if subconscious, to not be as thorough or comprehensive as one would be in a language concordant interaction.

Today in clinic I was using a Spanish interpreter and on several occasions the interpreter simply left out parts of what I was saying (based on my limited Spanish). I’m not sure if it was for clarity sake, or succinctness, but I think part of the art of medicine is carefully choosing your words and how you relay information to patients.

The solution is simple, physician need to learn the languages of their patients, but that is not super practical. Not sure what the solution, but I just imagine it’s a bit scary having doctors examining your belly and talking about you in front of you without you really understand what is being said.

Surgery – Day 8

Sundays in surgery I really feel bad for the residents. At least on the service I’m on, the third year does a 24 hour shift and they are by themselves with no intern or other resident to help them. They will sometimes have at least 1 medical student, but sadly the help that we actually provide is probably minimal. Yet I am impressed by the resolve and attitude of the 3rd years I’ve worked with, that despite the occasional complaints or exasperated sighs, they seem to be keeping it together and able to work with a relatively positive attitude (perhaps relative to what might be expected).

Today felt like a lot of getting to understand bit more about the structure of residency and glimpsing the mind of a seasoned resident in day-to-day action. I’ll do my best to soak up what I can from these last few days on the service.

Intention

Just to build off of yesterday’s reflection, setting very specific and defined tasks work for certain bigger picture, but maybe aren’t so good for others. As an example, part of this months challenge is to play through a piano piece I’ve been working on twice everyday. Going through this process I have been playing the piano more, but I’m not sure if I’ve been getting any better at playing this piece. I still make a lot of mistakes, or I’ll make new mistakes that I hadn’t made since first learning it. I think part of it is I’m not practicing with intention; I’m practicing to get through and over with it. I don’t take the time to work through spots that are giving me trouble and reinforce proper form and stuff.

Going

The one thing that is hard about goals is that sometimes at get so focused on outcomes that I forget what it’s all for. As cheesy as it sounds, it becomes all about the destination, rather than the journey. At the same time if I cut myself too much slack and say I always gotta slow down and enjoy the journey then I may not get where I’m tryna go and that is a potential source of distress in itself. It’s ok to be goal and outcome oriented, but just got to remember that the small things are important too.

Jambalaya

Sometimes I just feel very thankful for all the people who have been a part of my life, past and present. Every interaction I’ve had throughout my life big or small, has probably left at least a small mark on who I am today. Every conversation, every exchange of words or of glances is data that get processed and applied into my decision making whether I’m conscious of it or not. At least, it’s kinda romantic to think that that’s the case, I actually have no idea.