Not sure who this is for. Maybe it's a journal.

 

Where to start that hasn't been covered by every news source on earth?

I'm a specialist.  When COVID rises, I lose cases. The ORs get turned into COVID units.  People get scared.  There aren't many procedures.

In 2020, I was convinced I'd be laid off.  People were "Thanking me for my service" (which has to bother the actual frontliners who didn't volunteer for combat detail) while I laid at home on furlough for a week only to return to fifteen minutes of work.

The numbers up north have gone insane.  As the southerners go outside, the northerners go inside and have holiday festivities and now we're back at peak.  Work was slow today, so I pretty much trolled a popular conservative website over "Let's go Brandon" because I needed something that wasn't freaking COVID.

I feel like this has been one extremely long continuous year.  I still remember my NPR international news from February of 2020 talking about a new Coronavirus variant in Wuhan and going "Hmm.  Wonder if that will turn out to be anything".

There are also the horrible people.  I lost friends I thought had been mine for YEARS over the divorce.  Then a lost a few more.  Doctors can have a rough road when you have people that are conspiracy theorists. I lost one during ebola.  My mom was in surgery for endometrial cancer.  This idiot posted an article that ebola had gone airborne and the CDC was covering it up, which I think would be internationally illegal and also as likely, in virus world, as a dog growing wings.

When I brought this up, and that I was in direct contact with the CDC (micro rotation, oh joy), she and a different friend kept on about this.  I mentioned that ebola had been well documented in its form and function since around the 70s and she could hit pubmed for free.  Oh, no, she does her own research. It was likely, but the officials and doctors are hiding it.  I said "You're essentially accusing me of murdering my own lab techs."  She said "don't take it personally".  I said "I take accusations of murder very seriously".  She said "Well, we'll agree to disagree" and I said "whether I'm guilty of potential mass murder is not something I agree to disagree on" and blocked her.  Then I got a long winded message about how I'd thrown away a barely present friendship over politics.

I have friends in pediatrics accused of giving children an incurable terrible disease.

And I just lost another friend.  He was convinced that the vaccine was changing DNA (if we could do that, sickle cell and cystic fibrosis wouldn't exist).  When I explained that Rand Paul is an idiot and what was actually being discussed required a graduate level understanding of genetics, he called me complicit in the lie to please my masters.  When this man was about to be homeless, I offered to let him stay in our home.  He accused me of helping murder hundreds of thousands of americans.

So prepare for this. Choose your friends wisely.  Be prepared to even be stripped of your medical degree if people disagree with you.  The number of people that field demote me because I disagree with on some stupid unrelated thing (I believe in universal healthcare; I like hiking) means I'm not a REAL doctor.  I'm faking it.  Probably work at McDonalds.

So there's that.

The general dismissal of expertise is frustrating.  I've needed lawyers twice in the last year, once for defense (long story, it's fine), one for real estate, since buying a house out here is a nightmare.

I didn't think I was a lawyer.  I asked my boyfriend what to do and he told me what to do in each case, and not THROUGH him, since he does neither type of law.  He told me who to call and what to expect and whether I was being treated fairly.  He doesn't even fake a knowledge of areas of law he doesn't know anymore than I know anything about orthopedic surgery.

The example I use is one of a mechanic, trained or not, (since law and medicine require licenses), but if you've been building engines from scratch from the age of 15, got your business opened at 25 and have 15 years of experience, I am not going to pretend I know more about my car.  For all I know, cars run on elf farts and Santa magic.  So why would I claim mechanics are all wrong?  Are there some bad ones? Sure. Does that make me an expert? No.

I'm also not a climate scientist.  I'm generally of the opinion that if 98% of experts agree on something, they're probably right, and if they aren't, I'm certainly not going to have the expertise to prove them wrong, but I watched an episode of Cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson (the only man my mother and I would fight over romantically) and he explained in with layman's terms in about 20 minutes.  And I was like "Oh. That makes sense.  I'm not an expert, but I understand".

But that's some relic of the past or something.

So this is depressing.  Christmas was great though I went all out to give my boyfriend's son a great Christmas and he wound up quarantined for COVID (he's fine).  So boyfriend did a ding dong dash with all his presents.

We're going to a socially distanced red dress (just me this time) soiree for NYE complete with me having a sparkly red mask.  He said he's so glad he gets to kiss someone for New Year's.  Which was weird, since you always kiss someone on NYE. I've kissed strangers pre covid.

But back to depression. Surprise surprise I have depression and anxiety, which if you follow this blog, you probably figured out.

The SSRI helps (not Prozac, that made me crazy), but as long as I dismissed it, I've been giving CBT workbooks and journaling a try, and for those struggling, particularly those that can't afford a therapist, it honestly really helps, particularly if you're the kind of person who obsesses on the same toxic ideas.  You can just spew that out onto paper and get it out of your head.

I'm on some facebook naughty list where I'm yet again banned for a month.  An antivaxxer said I was ugly and I said "nothing is uglier than willful ignorance" and boom, I'm a bully.  It's probably more of a blessing and a curse. They also banned me for detailing years of emotional abuse and how it affected me and for affectionately calling a fellow diver an animal as a joke.

And back to happy stuff (maybe I'm bipolar 2, who knows).  I'm learning my hobbies again.  I got my guitar restrung and my electric checked.  My calluses are gone but I've played a few songs.  I made an ornament this week.  I'm currently working on an elaborate pen, ink, watercolor, colored pencil falcon.

My boyfriend and I were mourning the death of attention span and we're both bookworms.  We waxed poetic about how we both used to stick a book in a backpack or briefcase.

So I started doing it again.  I'm in the land of not pumping my own gas.  Grab the book.  The surgeon tells me the procedure is starting and then I wait for an hour, but don't have my work with me.  Grab the book.

What's funny though... I was reading a 90s thriller novel with my feet up after a two hour wait on a procedure.  They didn't mean anything but a couple of my colleagues were like "Really working hard eh?"  Yet, before that, I tended to screw around on facebook and reddit.  Staring slackjawed at my screen was considered more "working" than flying through a paperback.

Oh the exciting stuff!!!   After nearly three years of living in this overpriced claptrap electrical deathtrap of a falling apart cheaply made townhouse, we're looking like we're closing on a house mid February (taking care of my mom; my boyfriend is neat and I'm messy; we'd kill each other).

15 minutes from work, 25 minutes from boyfriend in an actual TOWN with actual things to do and a big lake to fish in and kayak on.  A big basement with space for a gym, craft area, and guitar center.  A master on the second floor so as my mom's knees and hips get weaker, she is on the main floor (and we aren't in each other's faces) but I'm close enough to take care of her.  Potential.  A fenced in backyard.  I have so many plans.  New porch, nice door, replace the electric stove with gas and run a gas line to the back for a smoker and a grill (can't use them here).  Big fire pit.  Adirondack chairs.  The real Amish ones.  An herb garden.

My last house was way too much.  I got doctor syndrome and bought a palatial mansion with space we never used that required a housekeeper and organizer thrice weekly just to keep my husband and I married longer.  Over an acre of unfenced land to try to tend.

This?  No.  Other than the unbelievable price, this is nice clean standard middle class living.  Comfortable, cozy, easy to keep up.  Easy to mow the lawn, rake the leaves, let the dog out, sit around the firepit drinking beer.  I'm so excited. Maybe 2022 won't be the two years of continual suckage where the only thing that lets you know time is passing is how many layers of clothes you have to wear.

If any current students are still reading this, I'd love to know what the island is like these days.  Does IGA always have eggs now?  Do they have a chinese restaurant that isn't terrible?  Are the Patels still selling samosas at the top of the hill?  Or the brown van guy?  Is there a roof on the Hurricane Ivan church?  Does the school still sponsor Sandblast?  Is Carib and Ting still the only way to avoid getting poisoned by your water during the rainy season?  Did they pave the dusty highway?

Can you go home again?

 So, my boyfriend has heard enough Grenada stories to want to see the magic.

In truth, I kind of want to see the magic.  I get a weird Stockholm Syndrome about my time on the island.

We're getting close soon.  The interhash (which new students should be invoked into) is in Trinidad and Tobago.  That's as close as you can get to Grenada without enrolling.  I really want to see what's become of us.  What's become of Caribbean medicine.

I'm not taking him to Grenada yet, because I don't have enough reason, but I am taking him to T&T, since I infected him with the hash.  We just got back from the Red Dress Run in New Orleans.  It's weird that the hash has taken me to more places than... medicine.

If anyone is still reading this, particularly any newbs that are arriving for medical school, what's it like?  Do you like it?  Is it modern?  Does IGA still run out of eggs?  Are there more restaurants?  Did you dive the Bianca C?  Are you still bringing Hershey bars to histology?  Do the locals hate us more or less?

Where to start?  Do you care about me?  Or the process?

For me?  My dad died.  Poorly, I believe.  The police in North Carolina were extremely delicate with me, but my time in forensics allowed me to read between the lines and know that they found what we'd roll our eyes about in autopsy and have it ruin our lunch.  His ashes are on my dining room table.  I have a necklace to hold them ordered, despite not believing in second chances or an afterlife, but hoping I'm wrong.

How do you say "I'm an atheist.  There's nothing after this, but I forgive you.  I forgive you 25 years of squandered chances, but I can't maintain a grudge after death, so now I only feel regret?"  I paid for his cell phone, and the plan, so I send text messages into the murk as if they mean something.  But I paid for AT&T, which means I paid for closure.

The boyfriend is a Cityiot by breeding, which makes him long for the outdoors.  We're planning a hiking trip in Maine.  This means the parts of my father that aren't in an "I'm sorry we didn't get along" pendant will be in a halcyon national park when I discreetly scatter him there.  In the meantime, I hefted the inconsequential weight of his ashes in the back of my car today.  I picked him up from the post office.  The ashes weighed so little, but he was in such poor health, it feels like I was hefting his actual weight. 

But you're not here for that; you're here for how doctoring from the Caribbean works out.

Well, it does.  I got grieve leave, despite not being sure whether I need it.  I'm treated exceptionally well.  I swap out procedures and vacation with another St. George's alumnus, who is a good person and doctor.  I get bonuses.  I was kept on through COVID when we had virtually no preventative workup work.  I/m so privileged that I got a shot on Christmas Eve of last year.  I'm looking forward to a booster.

I have vacation.  I have freedom.  And though I'd been once to Mexico, and once to the Philippines (diving) before medical school, the chaos of becoming a doctor in another country gave me the absolute gift of adaptability.

If you can get a US MD, do it.  Don't let snow or cost deter you.  But if you desperately want to be a physician, and foreign travel is your only option, it will change you.  It will age you.  It will allow you to be an adaptable creature where you previously weren't.  It will allow you to change habit and diet to adapt.

That's no bad thing.

I guess it's not the end.

Though I can't imagine anyone still reads this.

Boater Dave, if you're still stalking me from England, please get stuffed and don't comment on me.  Also, while I'll get to why he sucks in a minute, asking if a guy from Queens who happens to be brown is a "Jihadi" put you in the "bad guy category" a long time ago.  He's an asshole, not a terrorist.

ANYWAY.

So, some stuff's changed.

That marriage?  Yeah no.  Helpful hints: don't be someone's third marriage.  There's probably a reason stuff went wrong, and after several years of emotional abuse and deliberately packing weight on me (which is GONEZO along with the 180 lbs of unemployed loser!!!!!).

Pittsburgh is a thing of the past.  To all you newly minted doctors, let me give you some advice.  Your first job doesn't need to be your last job.  Getting out of residency/fellowship, that six figures is just like winning the lottery.

Stuff I put up with: having my PTO literally stolen.  Having the lab director bring a screaming baby in for the entire day because of her perpetual nanny issues at least four times because of things like "my nanny cam showed my nanny (who all had to be from Colombia for some reason) putting my baby in front of the television".  Having the lab director leave nigh daily by 2:30, leaving the rest of any work detail for us.

Periodically forgetting I had told her something (like an international flight had changed and there was nothing I could do about it or telling her repeatedly I had a weird soft tissue tumor, getting her advice, getting updated, updating her, repeatedly updating her, having to send it to two institutions etc), and she would regularly burst into my office screaming her lungs out about some nonsense.  This is not how I resolve conflicts.

Having a lab director talk about me like a high school mean girl directly outside of my door in front of support staff.

Having a lab director diss me to other doctors including at tumor boards, ruining my reputation.

Having a lab director demand that I not seek advice from the ONLY person at that job who was kind to me because he didn't "know their system", despite him doing pathology for fifty years.

So yeah, abused at work, abused at home.

So that's depressing, right?  But six figures?  This has to be as good as it gets?  My husband is neglectful, cheats on me, and expects me to make the money, clean the house, cook the food, be his beer buddy, and maintain the body of a supermodel while sabotaging any attempts at working out or eating well, but it's not like he's ever laid hands on me.

So your first job may be garbage.  Once you've gotten enough experience to start getting recruiter emails or fit the requirements on your hiring lists of choice, MAKE YOUR OWN PATH.  Do not tolerate abuse because you think it's what being a doctor means.  Unless you're an ED nurse during 2020.  Then... your life sucked.

But Monroeville is amazing.  I love the neighbors, I love the free "heart attack" venison.

I'd do the whole 2020 thing, but I think we're all damn sick of it, and there's nothing I can really add to the conversation other than what every other doctor colleague says which is "GET THE DAMNED VACCINE SO WE CAN GET BACK TO NORMAL".  If you're antivax, please avoid the comment section and go back to getting your news from Q.

My vacation foibles are back, so since I suppose I've revived this blog from the dead, I'll post some of those pictures when I get around to it.  Besides, due to that damned fire, this blog is one source of some of my trips and such, so having a backup never hurts.

You can read my experiences at SGU, but keep in mind they're old.  I haven't been back to the island, so what's developed, what the exams are like, what restaurants are there, what the housing is like, I have no idea.  They still have a high USMLE step 1 pass rate and a huge bill, but that's all I know.

But have a great day, ya'll.