I suppose the title’s a little misleading, because there are few days that I don’t look like a jackass. Be that as it may…

I was following a very high-strung surgeon around a few weeks ago, and we were cruising back and forth across the hospital to see patients in the 5 minutes we had between cases. Did I mention the guy was high-strung? I meant manic. We were literally running.

Anyhow, as is normal for me, I felt like my hands were dirty. I always feel like my hands are dirty. I routinely stick my fingers in orifices that would get me arrested in any other circumstance, and even though I’ve got gloves on, I still feel contaminated.

As we sprinted past a wall-mounted alcohol dispenser, I reached over to spurt some on my hands. Unfortunately this time the cleaning professional† neglected to snap the dispenser in place. I guess I hadn’t realized how much force I normally put on those things to get the sanitizer out, but the point is, as it flew off the wall – breaking in the process – I lost my center of gravity.

BOOM! Down I went.

Naturally, this happened in the busiest possible intersection in the hospital, overflowing with various nurses, techs, doctors, patients, etc. Wide-eyed stares all around. The doc looked back to see why I had stopped talking, only to start laughing as he saw me on the floor covered in antiseptic. A patient muttered “hate to be him…”, chuckling under his breath.

Nothing hurt but my pride.

† PC for “janitor”

Well, after deleting everything, reuploading it, deleting it again, reuploading, and finally erasing the entire blog and retyping all 277 posts by hand (how do I find the time for this on OB/GYN, you ask†?)… Agraphia is back up and running. Comments are back on-line as well, so go ahead and post all those zingers.

And I’m off to write about OB/GYN, now that I can actually access my blog!

†Magic

I know something’s buggy with the site, folks, but I don’t know exactly what. I was wondering if you were all just giving me the cold shoulder (no comments!) but then I realized that anything that isn’t the main page isn’t loading… I’ll try to fix it when I get back for work.

In the meantime my links on the side are all to really good other blogs, so you should read them.

Catching up on my blogs for the evening, I came across this post by Tiny Shrink, in which she discusses the nitty gritty of choosing a medical specialty. She does a much better job than me summing up why, exactly, I’m freaking out about picking a career. Most of my attendings and residents are very laissez faire about the whole thing, and defuse my anxiety with wise sayings based on many years of experience.

“Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”
“It’s not the end of the world.”
“I knew right away.”
“I honestly wish I had never gone into medicine in the first place.”

Oh wait.

I now know there are doctors – more than I’d like to think – who are miserable because they picked the wrong specialty. Either they didn’t get exposed to the field they should have been in, or they convinced themselves that the money/lifestyle/fame/etc. was more important than doing something they loved.

I’m stressing because I’m still working on the exposure part. So far nothing has really clicked. Once that happens, then I can struggle with the decision to sell out or not†.

†Stay posted, dear readers.

So, immediately after writing the post about how much I hated ophthalmology, I began to recant. Not because clinic isn’t infernally boring (it is) – but because I got to see eye surgery, which is hands down the most interesting thing I’ve seen this year. Doesn’t make up for clinic, but it tempers things out a bit.

Anyhow, my apologies for how long it’s been taking me to post lately, but I’ve been feeling very ambivalent. Clinic is boring, surgery is cool. I suppose if I tried really hard, I could convince myself that I would be happy as an ophtho; 9-4 workdays, take Fridays off, do sweet procedures, earn $300,000+ a year, have a tolerable clinic. Nothing really all that interesting about the patients, but hey, the surgery is nifty.

I don’t know though. Frankly, the reason I haven’t been posting is that I have nothing interesting to say. Keep in mind, the first person to read any blog post on Agraphia is me.

That being said, I personally find reading back through this post boring. I need to say it (catharsis, remember?) but I can’t even make it interesting to myself. I guess that’s my answer… I will not be looking at eyes for the rest of my life.

I always loved going to the eye doctor when I was a kid. There’s something fun about sitting in a chair twice your size while the ophtho smoothly glides lenses over the refractor. The lights are dimmed, and you can hear glass *click* neatly into place while the doctor quietly asks 1… or 2… 1… or 2… 1… or 2…

It’s incredibly relaxing, and I used to almost fall asleep every time I went.

Now, this is one thing when you’re a kid being seen by the eye doctor. It’s another entirely when you’re a medical student, sleep deprived as it is, and the same thing happens.

Y’see, I’ve been working with this really awesome resident from India, Dr. Raj. Only problem is, Dr. Raj has a very quiet, almost hypnotic voice, and he’s a stickler for turning the room lights out when he examines patients. He pronounces his t’s at the end of every word very carefully and purrs through the rest of his words, which results in something like this: look rrright… look dowwwn… now look leffft… close your eyesss…

I seriously fall asleep 4 times an hour. Actually, just the thought of him speaking is making my eyelids heavy. Naptime!

It’s interesting, being me. I’m not sure about you, but I often try to convince myself that I enjoy what I’m doing – even if I don’t. A lot of it is conscious (I liked neuro and eyes, right? I should like ophtho), some is unconscious (thoughts of a sweet lifestyle and killer paycheck swill around in my head).

For example, I was originally an Electrical/Computer Engineering major in college. It should have worked out – I liked computers and electronics. Still do. So, I sat in class, telling myself and others “I think I like ECE”. Then I realized that my classmates were designing circuits on their spare time because they loved it so much. Long story short, I took a Biochemistry class and just knew. The same thing happened 2 years later when I volunteered in an ER for a summer. I’ve never looked back.

Back to ophtho. I hated my first day, because I didn’t know what I was doing. I liked the second, because I learned how to use their toys. So, I came home and used words like “I think I like ophtho”. I tried to convince myself that I liked it, because I want to. All the ophthalmologists I’ve met love their jobs and say they’d do it all over again. But, at one point today I was looking in my umpteenth eye, when it hit me.

I was so goddamn bored.

The urge to run out of the clinic hit me like a freight train. I just wanted to go home. Of course, I couldn’t, as it was only 3:45. I spent the rest of the afternoon really thinking about what’s worked and what hasn’t over the past 9 weeks.

I realized I like fun patients – eye patients are invariably boring. Glaucoma glaucoma glaucoma diabetes diabetes diabetes glaucoma… You get the point. There is absolutely nothing interesting or exciting about how someone came into your office with gradually decreasing vision for the last 2 months. Nothing.

I’m also a fairly loud and friendly person who gets bored quickly. I was bored after my 3rd glaucoma patient. Eye docs see 40 of them a day. They also examine in small, quiet, dark rooms. This fits in poorly with my aforementioned loud and jovial nature.

I liked doing procedures, but not back-breaking, 4 hour long surgery. Sewing up massive lacerations and shipping them off to Plastics for the detail work was A-Ok by me.

Diagnosis is fun. Management is not. My favorite part about Neurology was being consulted on something unknown and figuring out what was wrong. My least favorite was tweaking medications. My even leaster favorite was followup visits.

Where in medicine can I diagnose a million diseases every day? Where can I find crackheads and drunk college kids doing stupid things with beer bottles and lighters? Where do patients scream and curse while you do every minor procedure under the sun? Where, dear readers, will I get my stories?

The ER.

I hate my pager. I think most medical students/interns/residents/doctors do – anybody with a phone can monopolize your time. “I know he’s on a mechanical ventilator, but Mr. C would like to go outside and smoke…”

But see, that’s not really why I hate my pager. No, I hate my pager because it uses batteries faster than anything I’ve ever seen. It’s not even nice about it. When the battery is low, it emits a triple-beep, piercing noise every hour or so, waking me up at night, until I give it more juice.

I changed the battery 2 weeks ago. I don’t get it. My old game boy would last longer than this piece of crap, and the pager has a tiny display that I can barely read. I haven’t even been paged for a week, so it’s not like it’s doing anything important.

It just sits there, feeding off batteries like some little black vampire. Look, I didn’t want the damn pager in the first place, having to replace batteries every few weeks just adds insult to injury.

—————–

Open scene. Zac is trying to fall asleep after a long day. He is tossing and turning in bed. There is a crib holding an oversized pager next to the bed. Overhead three pager tones play, over and over, until Zac finally sits up, rubbing his eyes.

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…

Zac: Honey, the pager’s going off again. Is it your turn or mine?

There is no answer.

Zac: Oh wait, I forgot, I’m not married. She didn’t want the pager…

Wiping away a solitary tear, he crawls out of bed. He picks the pager up, cradling it gently in his arms.

Zac: At least I have you, Pagey. You’ll always be with me. Always.