i am not a surgeon

this past month, as i mentioned in the last blog entry (which, btw, i wasn't even able to upload until NOW.. sadness), i've been answering my pages thus: "Hi, this is Dr. Park, GENERAL SURGERY, I was paged?!" i can't tell you how happy i am that i will never again answer my pages as a surgeon. i really thought about going into surgery, pretty seriously during my 3rd year of med school... i set up my 4th year thinking that i was going to go for ENT/Otolaryngology, and debated the merits of general surgery vs. family medicine in terms of practicality for mission work. and though i found my perfect career match in family/psychiatry, i've always had a little bit of doubt- did i make the right choice?? i do love the OR- it must be the control/neat freak in me. in any case, all of those doubts have been totally quelched now that i've done a month of general surgery. first of all, though ENT would be awesome, i'd still have to survive a year of general surgery internship. and though i think i would survive, i'd be a very different person. namely, half-dead and depressed as hell. i just don't know how they do it- i realized that no amount of work, no matter how interesting it is, can justify the sleep deprivation and human-contact-deprivation that occurs. second of all, i really don't like anatomy. yes it's cool, but i just don't have the mind for it. i should have realized this when all the tendons/nerves/vessels looked the same to me in first year anatomy class- but it took this month's pimping sessions to make me realize that i'd never have the desire or drive to pore over a Netter's book again. i mean, i do need a basic knowledge obviously to be a family doc, but i truly don't need to know the blood supply to the colon to know that someone's got ischemic colitis. and third- birds of a feather DO flock together. general surgeons, as an unfairly stereotyped whole, are not the kind of folk i'd like befriend. i had some GREAT attendings, a wonderful co-intern, and a mixed bag of senior residents this past month... yes, some of them were very cool... but something about the stress/intensity of SURGERY makes them less sensitive to patient needs, less patient in general with each other, and overall.... not chill. and more importantly, not like me.


but enough about my life for the past month.... over the past few days, it has gotten dramatically and exponentially better because... I'M ON VACATION YAAAAAAAY!!! andy and i touched down in socal this past monday morning, and are currently enjoying the wondrous home cooking of my mommy. we saw my grandma and cousins on monday, had dinner with dean&angie&evan yesterday night, and are planning on making an inland trek to LOMA LINDA today (woohoo!). life is so good right now. i'm happy to be *home*.