Unexpectedly, on my current rotation, OB/GYN, I meet an astonishingly large number of people. This isn't a small service with just a few attendings; it's huge, with many, many attendings and many preceptors and many patients (of course, cause it doesn't take that long to have a baby) and a surprisingly large number of these people aren't happy with just a superficial introduction, they want details. The first thing they usually ask is 'where are you from?' which is a difficult question to answer for some of us. I don't really feel like I can actually claim any place as home, so I usually claim air force brat status, even though I've never really felt that much like one, maybe because we never lived on base and didn't do stuff with other military people. So here I am, repeatedly telling people I'm an air force brat, when really, now is the most I've ever thought about it, a circumstance which has more of less been forced on me. I'm also finding it necessary to ask people about their details, because they see you as unfriendly if you don't, and being part of a team requires friendliness, if you want to be effective and not-miserable. I'm thinking about this in relation to Janae's post about how she doesn't like to explain herself and doesn't feel that she should have to; ie, to a certain extent you simply HAVE to, or you can't effectively be around other people. What am I trying to say here? Honestly, I'm not sure. It's 2:30 am and I'm on call, which means I woke up at 5:00 yesterday morning. I'm not thinking that clearly, but I think what I'm trying to say is that I kind of resent being forced into declaring myself when I wasn't ready to, but it's no one's fault but my own, for not either accepting that it is the truth about myself or not coming up with a more appropriate answer. Maybe I'm just annoyed because, like Janae, I simply don't want to explain myself, which is really me being a coward and wanting to hide who I am.
Hum. Fun call night thoughts.
: )
3 comments:
I wouldn't have thought that "coward" would be the word that comes to mind when describing us but yeah, maybe a little bit. It's only a small streak of coward-ish though - it's not that big and I think that's pretty normal.
I think the hardest part about "forcing your identity" is finding something defining. I know your dad said that only recently he was able to stop defining himself through the military. I have had to remove myself from being defined as an athlete (I don't believe me anymore). So once you do find whatever it is that defines you, be prepared for it to change. The difference between married to a medical student and married to a doctor has been a big difference. And it just keeps changing. :)
Good point, Vickie. Defining myself as a medical student is interesting, especially since it means something very different depending on what year you are, and then I sometimes pick up shifts as a nurse....
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