Many of you already know who I am, though, given the way Facebook works these days, many of you actually know the person I was, so I'll introduce myself to all of you all over again...
After I left Florida for college and the great beyond, life had a way of rearranging itself. A very dear friend lost a very dear child and witnessing the effect of that loss, both on that family and within myself, made me switch gears. The helplessness made me insane. I didn't know enough about what was wrong, it wasn't something I could fix. So, I decided to change that. I decided I would become a pediatrician.
Cut to 17 years later, and I am not, in fact, a pediatrician. Though theirs is a noble pursuit, I was lost the moment someone handed me a stitch in the operating room. It's difficult to describe the feel of a metal instrument being thwacked into your gloved palm. Even more difficult to explain the strange combination of dissociation and intense concentration that is required to perform surgery. The operating room feels like a sanctuary to me, a world of calm, even in the most frenzied of situations. In short, it feels like home.
Because I never do anything the easy way, I took a long break during my residency training. So for those of you trying to do the math, or thinking, "Geez, how long does this stuff take? Those girls on Grey's Anatomy are almost done with their training!" The answer is (usually) 13 years. Fours years of undergrad, four years of med school, five years of residency. For me, it's been a tad longer. Georgia Tech took a little longer than four. Then I had a brief stint in a magical place for a year, taking a much needed break before starting med school. Then, insert four years of a surgical oncology fellowship in another magical place, and suddenly here I am, still with two years of training to complete.
However, to quote my favorite composer, "[take] any path. So many worth exploring. Just one would be so boring. And look what you're ignoring..."
So, this blog finds me at an Ivy League university (a place I never thought this Southern girl would land), in my fourth year of residency preparing for a month-long surgical elective in Kisumu, Kenya.
Read along, if you want, and join me on the journey.
