I have slowly learned to transition my thinking about Medicine. Medicine is very all-encompassing, particularly during medical school and training. These are critical years of life, and medical school takes a lot of focus! At the time, I was jealous of my friends’ ability to take vacation, spend money that I didn’t have, and have a lot more weekends off. I was quite despondent; “med school sucks” was a commonly stated thing. It became part of who we all were – we complained of stress, fatigue, lack of money, lack of appreciation and the like. I would lie if I said I didn’t act more tired than I was sometimes for sympathy!
Ugh. In honesty, it wasn’t that bad, we were just “different.” Medical School is still school, and we remained students, including all of the immaturity associated with it. We went out drinking more than we should have, we crammed intensely then took a week off from studying. We could adjust our study schedule to do whatever fun things we liked to do. We were simply first experiencing what becomes a common theme for all adults – you can pick and choose things you want to do and be great at … but you can’t pick them all!
I would LOVE to have had time to hit all my life goals – at the time I still held the idea that I could do some sort of serious athletic training and maybe compete (for fun, of course, but reasonably competitively … what a dream!). I thought I could get around to learning to cook well, backcountry ski, camp and canoe, lead climbing a 5.11, playing piano, and a million other things that sound super cool but take a lot of time. More recently, my “if I had all the time in the world” goals are things like being able to run a 6:00 mile again; hitting certain lifting milestones; learning to olympic lift and maybe doing a CrossFit or Powerlifting competition. Reasonably playing piano again. But I even think about things like beating this or that video game, learning to use a Komodo grill, or even learning calligraphy. I’m super weird, I know. But this idea – that I should be able to do anything and everything – is hard to break.
The truth is, in medicine we are left with this nagging idea that eats at our sense of freedom: I can do all these things once I’m done with this or that at work, once I’m an associate professor, once my kids are older. And eventually, maybe we have time to reach those goals but we no longer have the energy, health, mental capacity or recovery ability to do it.
I have to be honest, I HATE that mindset. I’m bad at it, but I’m slowly realizing that I need to adjust my goals. Instead of wanting to do everything wonderfully at a high level, I have to accept that it is far, far better to appreciate the talent in others, appreciate the joy of doing something Just For Fun. For example, enjoy some running, but don’t go on a running program that I track on my computer that is constantly pushing towards a 6:00 mile and requires a fixed schedule and 5 sessions a week, in addition to my lifting. And pick – carefully – the things that matter, and do those things at the highest level possible. After all, Michael Jordan wasn’t an incredible basketball player, gymnast and pianist. He didn’t rock climb. Of course I’ll likely never be the best at anything I do, but at least I can do a couple things extremely well. And the other things – well those can still just be fun (and less intensely goal-oriented).
Like being a good dad, and a good doctor. And that’s what I gave up those other things to do. I am in shape, but I can’t run a 6:00 mile because I also love to spend time with my girls instead of getting home late and running, or missing out on their morning routines because I’m at the gym. And it’s not bad. Yes, we gave up things to become doctors. But we became doctors! We became experts – professionals – at caring for people in ways that require a really cool set of skills, and that requires focus, clarity of thought, some intelligence and commitment to learning and applying knowledge at the bedside. OF course that came at some cost. But so do most jobs. And certainly most really cool jobs or high-level pursuits or sports. It’s not bad – it’s awesome!
I no longer pretend to be tired. In fact, I pretend the opposite. I love what I do and I want to emote that to the patients and students around me – I’m not tired, I’m excited to learn. I’m excited to help people. I’m honored to care for the critically ill, the frightened in preop, or the unexpectedly sick in the OR.
I still have my goals. I want to maybe eventually do something athletic competitively… maybe I’ll play piano again (just for fun of course). I still will buy some video games that will go mostly unplayed. But it isn’t bad that my real goals are what I once thought were “jobs” – being a good doctor. And being a good Dad. And doing those things well is worth not being able to do every exciting thing I’ve ever imagined about.