Hands shaking, I shifted the ultrasound probe until a black sac appeared. Slowly, I began to make out a tiny light-grey jellybean. It started to flutter. I gasped and turned the screen to show my patient. “I think… I think… that’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
The new mother burst out into tears. I kept my head to the screen, in part mesmerized by the tiny flicker, in part because I didn’t want her to see my eyes welling up too. Yesterday, I completed my second week of clerkship year. In medical education, a clerkship year is the year in medical school where students are in the hospital, treating patients and learning “on the job.” At NYU, it’s hyped up to be the most physically challenging and mentally demanding year of med school. Upperclassmen warned us about “getting pimped” or standing for 10+ hours in the operating room. After spending 96% of 2020 in my room wrapped up in a blanket staring at my laptop, I couldn’t begin to imagine working on my feet for 60-hour weeks. After I got into med school, a lot of people told me that it’s “smooth sailing from here!” While it is very difficult to fail out, it’s also true that many of us suffer from burnout. There were so many moments in the last few months where I didn’t want to look at pictures of brainstems or memorize the nine causes of normocytic anemia… how could I possibly study all of this (with no more pass-fail exams!), while also working full days? As the anxiety surrounding clerkship year grew with student panels and seven-hour orientation days, I bit my nails to the stubble, scratched until my body was covered in stress eczema, and experienced some of the worst migraine weeks I’ve ever had. The crazy thing is that I didn’t even realize I was stressed until my parents told me one morning that I needed to find more ways to relax. “That’s crazy,” I told my dad “I don’t have time. Hobbies make me feel more stressed and guilty because I’m not studying. I just need to keep pushing forward.” My dad shook his head, “It’s going to be hard for you to keep this up for the rest of your life.” I tried to brush away that conversation, but something about it left me uneasy. I got migraines thinking about how I would deal with a migraine when I was working 12-hour shifts. I picked at my skin, wondering if people would think the eczema on my neck were hickeys. I had nightmares about waking up late for my first day of clerkship and getting screamed at by some bigshot attending. I wondered how many more years it would take before I wouldn’t feel like I was operating on a baseline 7/10 stress level. When I couldn’t come up with a number, I wondered, for the first time, if I had chosen the right career. Even though there are days when I get to the hospital before sunrise and leave after the sun sets, I always have this burning desire to call someone and tell them all about the wounds I cleaned, the sutures I placed, and mostly, the patients that I met. Somehow, even though I spend the large majority of my days in the hospital, I feel more energized. Maybe it’s the novelty of helping to remove a dinosaur egg-sized fibroid from someone’s uterus. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of correctly diagnosing MS in a postpartum patient. I have Monday off, and while I’m grateful for the extra day to relax, there’s a small part of me that’s itching to go back to Bellevue... to see what happened to the woman we placed the NG tube in, or to check on that high-risk patient who is reaching her due date. I know that as the year picks up, there will be times where I feel incredibly stressed and frustrated – when I feel that I don’t know enough to help my patients, or when there’s nothing more I can do for them. But I wanted to reflect on the feelings I have right now, because I can’t remember a time I’ve felt so fulfilled. I also want to tell people who are on the road to being a doctor that every test, every class, every step you have to take will be worth it. No matter how many years it may take (or how many extra 0’s my younger sister’s bank account will have before I even start making money), I have the privilege to work in one of the most intellectually satisfying and emotionally rewarding professions. I went into medicine because – like every other pre-med – I wanted to make a difference in patients’ lives. I stayed because, even in just two weeks, they’ve made a difference in mine.
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