Ambivalence

There are days when I hate my job. There are days when I love my job. Honestly, I usually hate it and love it both within the same day. Sometimes I feel so confident in myself; I led a 3rd year medical student around today and could not believe how much more I knew than he did. Wow, I know that sounds dumb. I'm a doctor; I'm supposed to know more than he does, but there are so many times when I am reminded how much about children I still do not know. The good news is that I'm learning more and more with every shift. The bad news is that I switch services in 1 week, so I'll be thrown into a completely different territory and will start from scratch again. It's all good; I'm looking forward to learning a different specialty and facing the new challenges. Okay okay, so that's not entirely true ... I'm not a big fan of change and am just starting to get comfortable with the ER, but this change will be beneficial for me, so I'm keeping a positive outlook.

I love what I do so much; I can't find words to express how amazing it is to hold a baby in your arms and know that his parents trust you to make him better. To have a mom smile and say, "Thank you, doctor; this makes me feel so much better, and I'm going to sleep well tonight" after you explain what's going on with her kiddo makes all the crap that we deal with worth it. The downside comes when you can't give parents the good answers, when you have to give them bad news. I haven't had to deliver any earth-shattering news myself yet, but I've been there when it's happened, and it's so hard to fail the one time that it matters most. All of these precious children are ultimately in God's hands, and we are just tools that He uses, but it still stinks when His plan doesn't work out the way we wish it would.

I'm going to be honest; most days I ask myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" There are even days when I wonder if it's all worth it -- all the sleep lost, all the HUGE debt accrued, all the time away from my husband, all the friends that I have left in Houston, all the times I've gotten sick from a bug my patient has passed on. Every time that I begin to question, God always whispers to me that it is worth it because it's something He asked me to do. I never planned on being a doctor; in fact, I fought it until 3 months before the application process opened (taking the MCAT and knowing I had a single shot taught me real reliance on Him!). I wanted to go to med school in Dallas, but He put me in Houston where I made some of my best friends and met the love of my life. Like the old Caedmon's Call song states, "Looking back, You know You had to bring me through all that I was so afraid of; though I questioned the sky, now I see why I had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view. Looking back, I see a lead of love."

I will never have all the answers this side of Heaven. I'll never understand why so many things happen the way they do. This journey that I'm walking has left me so changed; I am not the woman I was 5 or even 2 years ago. I pray that I'm a better woman for it and that I will be above and beyond what I've ever expected through His grace alone.