Plate o' Shrimp

The best Part

The best part of the day yesterday was actually a small group from the dreaded clinical skills department. Clinical skills so far has been poorly organized and not that dynamic in content in terms of these lectures. But the best part is these small groups where you have the opportunity to work with local physicians on selected topics. Yesterday we had simulated patients from whom we took histories. I felt great after the group.. it was the type of interaction I had less and less as I moved up in academic administration.. the type of interaction I was looking for professionally when I decided to go to medical school. And I am good at it, and the rest of my group commented on it.

The rest of the day I found myself feeling pissed off about a lot of small things. I put my headphones on and walked up Grand Anse beach and out to Cortington point. I grow tired of my fellow students who want always lead with their dissatisfactions, yet not to acknowledge my own frustrations seem to make them grow. Mostly, I feel a bit strange for being a bit of a lone wolf here, I have made many friends but not that one go to person or circle of people who I completely relax around. Yet it is almost impossible to walk Grande Anse beach and not feel privileged to be here. There is a balance somewhere I think.

When out with Robert and Deanna on Friday, I commented about a premed prof who tried to talk me out of my decision to go to medical school.. or talk me into another path (why do so many people believed me to be destined for administration, do I have it tattooed on my forehead?) Robert talked about a scene in Jane Eyre where Rochester was looking at some paintings that Jane had produced that were of ships tossed by storms and wrecked on the rocks. Rochester asked Jane if she was happy when she painted them. Jane replied that she wasn’t precisely happy but that they had given her the greatest satisfaction she had known because she was so absorbed in the process when she painted them.

Robert went on to relate that story to one he read in the New Yorker about how most folks have happiness set points that are difficult to change. The one way to change that set point is to do something that captures you, that you become completely involved in. And that is what I have attempted to do for lack of a better explanation, change my happiness set point by becoming a physician. And when I loose myself in my studies I am more satisfied than I have been in a long long while.

As I observe myself thinking that I wish people wouldn’t be so negative I know I am really dissatisfied with my own periods of negativity. Even as I realize that I am more satisfied with my life here than I was back in Albuquerque, I feel like I am in a bit of a holding pattern emotionally. I have taken the steps to create a happier and healthier me, both for my own internal satisfaction and also with the hope that I would make new friends and perhaps (Gasp!) a boyfriend who would get where I am and who I would find equally compelling. But there is no guarantee that I will meet those folks who will mean as much to me as old friends and so my time here may continue to be a little bit lonely. So it is the bittersweet part of doing what is exactly right for me at this moment in time.

posted by Sa @ 9:13 AM