Daylight

A few months ago I had been under the impression that I was busy.  I realize now what busy really means but what gets me is that I am still probably wrong about what I consider busy.  At any rate...

The past week has been rather intense.  We have seen 80+ patients over three days and performed 14 operations.  Each day has been longer than 12 hours for the surgeon and myself.  Of course, this week is offset by the prior week in which we only had 60 patients and 9 surgeries.  I understand that not all weeks are like this one, but it's still to the point that I have to ask myself - how do they do it?  I am thankful that I don't have a residency waiting for me in which these hours would be pretty much normal.  I don't envy anyone that mental stress but I also am thankful that I will not subject my family to that.  Not seeing the daylight for four straight days (literally) definitely has an adverse effect on me but also for my family. 

An important part of all of this is that we all (my family and I) will have to understand that there will be weeks like this one - there will be weeks when I need to work a lot of extra hours because there is a lot of work to be done.  We can handle that.  But we also need to understand that when the weeks are a bit slower, we need to recharge the batteries a bit - we need to let things be a little slower and spend some extra time doing family centered things.  I guess I need to point out that I need to learn to take it a little slower on the slow weeks - and it's something that everyone coming after me should take into account. 

My advice: as students, take the slow weeks to tend to the family/friends. 

Now, if only I could take my own advice.