Apologies, readers.
I hit all the walls this spring— a creative wall, a time wall, a self-care wall—felt like I couldn’t juggle it all. In retrospect, maybe a little writing and reflection could have been the ticket out, but when you’re in a deep grind, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.
That being said, there’s no time like the present to pick up a habit that’s fallen off the cliff. There’s something about transitions— work transitions, relationship transitions, life transitions— that really fuels a fire in me. Not everyone feels this way, I understand. Change can be daunting, and every time it happens I find myself a little unnerved, a little scared. But I’m also learning that in almost everything in life, reps are everything; the more you do it, the less shocking it gets, and the better YOU get.
To loop everyone in (since I hardly expect anyone to keep up with the storyline of my life)— I spent the last year going BACK to training to pursue a pediatric anesthesia fellowship (I had previously been in practice as an attending general anesthesiologist for a few years). But after COVID, a couple years of practice, and some thoughtful self-reflection, I realized I wanted to push my learning and skills a little bit, engage with a cuter patient population, and bite the bullet with a year of extra training to try something new. I’m SO glad I did. While I’m still very nervous to embark on this new journey of taking care of tiny, tiny humans, I have a wee bit of wisdom from my first time out the gate— that there will be a steep learning curve as an attending, and I will be able to hang onto it.
I’ve learned a lot about myself, about medicine, and about people in this last year. In no shocking news, we as humans are WAY more capable than we realize, and putting yourself in the stretches of your comfort zone is a great way to learn that about yourself. Resilience is a muscle, tenacity is a muscle, patience is a muscle. You have to use them to keep them. With each new hospital I work at, I’ve learned there’s a lot more similarity than differences in the way we practice— while the nuances may change, the overarching themes stay the same. Similarly, a problem in one hospital may exist in another form in another. Again, the adage of “the grass is always greener”— holds true. What I’m surprised to learn is how far kindness, work ethic, and grace gets you. I wouldn’t say I’m perfect at any of these things, but generally, if your heart is in the right place, people seem to know. I say this specifically about working in medicine, and my colleagues in anesthesia. I’ve had waves of positive—and negative—experiences in the workplace, and I’m still very much on the early part of my career trajectory. I’ll say this— while there are layers of bureaucracy and inefficiency that can be exhausting and frustrating to deal with, my colleagues generally do want to help patients, and help each other. There’s often layers of intangibles that make our jobs more difficult than they need to be, that create the strifes that I see thwart us in the workplace.
This next stage of life I’m embarking on is a little adventurous— I feel inspired to keep pushing myself a little, and have decided I’m going to explore what’s out there in the great big world of anesthesia before I decide to put down some roots. It's going to be challenging, scary, and definitely a little risky, but as one colleague told me a couple days ago catching up outside the ORs, “why not?” She instilled me with confidence, and reminded me that sometimes you just have to go for certain things in life because you really don’t know where they’re going to take you. It reminded me that I could always learn to think a little bigger.
So let’s see what this new chapter holds. I hope you stay along for the ride.
A few fun things:
All the textiles and embroidery at this wedding. SWOON.
currently reading this, this, and this. plz send recommendations my way.
i know we’re all following the “it ends with us” drama.
peak health and wellness continues. i may need to talk about this in a future post. i have A LOT of feelings.
Since we’re on the theme of change, I’m considering a rebrand/rename to better reflect what this substack has become… keep y’all posted <3
Until next time,
S.