Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is Dead!

"Ding dong! The Wicked Witch is dead!"

I sang these lyrics on April 21, 2011 in the afternoon, after my last day with OR responsibilities. The Surgery Wicked Witch was dead!

And I found myself continuing to sing these lyrics into the next day, the last day official day of Surgery and of third year, both happening to be my on 28th birthday. (Happy Birthday to me!)

"She's gone where goblins go, below-below-below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out."

I sang these lyrics in my mind as I continued to celebrate all good things happening on Friday, during lunch with friends, during a walk in the park around the MFA, while sitting on the lawn of the Quad at HMS greeting fellow classmates, "Congratulations! You've made it!" And I soon realized it was also the Third-Year Wicked Witch being dead too.

Though I found myself elated that what is supposed to be the second hardest year of medical training (after intern year) as well as the toughest rotation of that year was over, I was saddened that my elation was not out of a sense of accomplishment, but out of a joy of escaping the wicked witches, a joy of it just being over.

Don't get me wrong. Third year and surgery are tough, and one would be crazy to want to go through it all over again. I'm not crazy. But isn't it intrinsically sad that after the first time I'm allowed to be truly a part of patients' care, after the first time I can act like a doctor, that all I can celebrate is its' end?

To be fair, of course, it's everything else about third year and surgery, everything other than the patients, that made me want to escape. I guess I'm just saddened to realize that a gift as special as being able to take care of patients can be couched in attitudes and workplaces so toxic as to make me be happy to run away from it all, all the way, in fact, to a Master's in Education for a year.

I guess that's just the way it is? Maybe we can change it one day? Ack, too heavy of a topic for me to think about right now as I try to cram for Step 2 of the boards that I'll be taking in just a week and a half. Ignorance is bliss, for now.

But one thing's for sure; no matter how dire I view medical education to be, third year and surgery are still over for me!

Coroner: "As the Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, but she's really most sincerely dead."

Mayor: "Then this is a day of Independence for all the munchkins and their descendents."

(Wise) Barrister: "If any."

Mayor: "Yes, let the joyeous news be spread! The Wicked old Witch at last is dead!"

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