I just have to post this that a wonderful doctor friend of mine wrote during her first of residency....As I was finishing medical school, I once joked to someone that there was not going to be much difference between being a surgical intern and being a mother. Dealing with pee and poop all day. Lots of work, little time for sleeping and eating. Knowing that healing was as much an art as a science. These themes permeate both arenas. In retrospect, I guess that was mostly right, but hardest part about Year 1 of Mommydoctor was this: as a doctor and as a mother, everybody needs you. Not just that, but they need you deeply. They need you about things that matter. Life, death, self-respect, self-love, health, education, family values, ethical dilemmas. Even when the specific demand isn't that important- I mean, is the kid really going to die if he doesn't get the exact same cereal bowl that his sister got?- somehow, the way that I respond to these demands matters deeply to me. I can respect someone who couldn't care less if the company doesn't make 0.005% more money today. I can't respect someone who cares nothing about the hurt feelings of a little boy or the confusion of an elderly man. When I fall short in medicine, and in mothering, it matters. I don't know how else to say it.

Being needed all the time is sooooo exhausting. First of all, physically. Imagine this: 80 hour + work weeks. Every 3rd or 4th day, you wake up at 4, get to work by 5, stay up all night and work until 12 noon the next day. Go home, eat, shower, sleep for 2 hours, get up and pick up your kids from school. Do dinner, homework, listen to stories about the day. Crash. Work a 12 hour day or two, then repeat. For a year. I know, I know, all you doctors out there don't want to hear me whining about it, but it's my website and I can whine to the world if I want to. Then, emotionally. Every patient is sick, they are needy and rightfully so, they deserve to be treated with respect. My children are 5 and 2 and they need their mother to know them and to see them for who they really are. My husband, despite all the things I put him through, still loves me and I desperately don't want to lose that either, so he needs some time too. Still, on an almost daily basis, exhaustion makes me resent all of these people and their needs as mere barriers to a shower, sleep, and food. I heard it would happen to me, and it does. I'm so tired I don't care about these people half the time.

OK, enough of that. I think I was just having some PTSD. You should know that I made it through intern year and I'm still a very nice person.


This is so true and still a balance I struggle for.......