A fun question

I was just having this conversation with some work colleagues so I thought you might want to throw in your answers:

What were your children's first words?

My two kids' were:

"Bye bye"

And, more heart-achingly, "Mama."

MiM Mail: Leave the Marines for medicine?

Successful ladies, mothers and driven achievers-it was so refreshing and motivating to come across this website and read your posts.  I am a mother of a beautiful 2.5 year old son, happily married for nine years now and currently deployed in Afghanistan missing it all.  However, being away has offered me time to reflect on my life goals. I find that yet again the desire to pursue a career in medicine springs to the forefront of my mind.  Shortly after starting college I uncovered a fascination and curiosity for physical science and the mechanics of the human body.   I was already obligated to military service so I didn’t follow this dream but kept my options open through completion of most pre-required course work (except organic chemistry). Now, after serving 10 years in the Marine Corps I still cannot stop thinking about this deep rooted desire-the idea of studying medicine just excites me!  I find studying the body and how it works to be a fascinating journey.  I feel very passionate about it.  Aside from observing a few surgeries and working in a physical therapy clinic, I have not done much volunteering in the traditional sense but I have certainly been exposed to medicine much more than the average non-health care provider.  I work long hours with my current employment and hope to find at least a few hours a week to clock some candy striper hours in the near future.  The purpose of my post today is to voice some of my reservations and look for advice from those who have already completed the journey or are currently on their way.

I have three big concerns holding me back from my pursuit: 1- As a mother, will I sacrifice the young years of my son’s life and miss out on milestones and memories if I am in school or residency?  Will I be able to have more children and nurse and nurture them or will I resent always having to leave them in the hands of another?  Certainly I am a woman who enjoys balancing motherhood with work; and I need to feel a sense of purpose from my work, but I am trying to determine how much is too much.  2- Am I smart enough?  I have never failed at anything, but it is not from natural abilities-it is from sheer will power.  Long after the gifted are done I continue to study, read and try to synthesize the day’s lessons.  I view myself as an average scholar-I have never been a great test taker (I only performed average on the ACT/SATs) but my grades have always been very good (Cum Laude with a BS in Physiology from Ohio State University).  This compounded with the fact that I am 10 years post-college has me concerned.  I don't want to get in over my head and succumb to overwhelming stress that reduces my quality of life.  3- Do I want to leave the Marine Corps?  It is a career I am good at and that is now familiar to me.  I resent so many hours away from my family though and am not sure that I can do anymore 6-8 month deployments.  I know it may not be much better with medicine, but I would be following my life’s passion.  Please help!  I would value any and all thoughts as I indecisively stand a fork in the road-both leading to two very different ends.

Hopefully submitted,
Emma

Taking Advantage

I've talked about how flexibility is really important for a female physician with young kids, and fortunately, it seems like more jobs are willing to provide it. However, I feel like if you're granted this flexibility, you have to be extra careful not to take advantage.

I don't work with anyone now who I feel takes advantage of this flexibility. But I've seen it in the past and I've heard a lot of stories. For example:

--Calling in sick excessively... like, every Friday

--Leaving early frequently if that's not part of your schedule

--Using your kids as an excuse to get out of just about everything

I'd like to think most women are responsible enough not to do this, but I'm not so sure. What do you think?

Guest post: Swimming

Becoming a mother and becoming a doctor were, in many ways, remarkably similar processes. They both required a radical redefinition of my sense of self. I thought that I had perfectly planned and designed my transition into each of these new identities. But after jumping, eyes closed and breath held, into each new role, I found myself unexpectedly struggling. Option one, the easy route, would have been to softly sink into the newness, absorbing it into myself without question, seeing in it something that had been there all along. Option two (the one that I chose), consisted of frantically splashing about to keep my head in the old world, fighting as if my life depended on not assimilating…and then, in the end, enjoying what I had known that I’d wanted all along.

First: doctoring. For so many years, I had resisted the desire to be a doctor. I did so for many reasons. I’d watched my dad (a surgeon) miss so much of life, and knew that I didn’t want mine to center on work the way that his did. I’d “learned” in college all about medical sociology and the way that new doctors get indoctrinated; I was horrified to think that I too would by necessity fall prey to this ideology if I went to medical school. I saw the passionless lives of professionals and knew that I DID NOT want that for my own – I wanted excitement and happiness and time and craziness and all the things that were not contained, by definition, in medicine. And of course I wanted to change the world.

But in the end medicine won out. I got convinced that I could in fact change the world as a doctor. And I sat down to learn the language, the cadence, the perspectives. Of course I spit and struggled in its face: first I broke up with my boyfriend for convincing me that med school was a good idea; then I refused to study “too hard” because doing so would be legitimizing the establishment; all throughout, I held myself apart, insisting that I was somehow “different” from my classmates. And yet one day, before I knew it, I had become one – a “doctor.” I thought like one, talked like one, was passionate like one. I think my real wakeup call came when I got engaged, and realized that I was no less of a woman for being a physician. And that I was, in fact, better at making informed decisions about my future life than I would have been without medical school. I had fought being submerged by medicine. But I surprisingly realized that I had learned how to float.

And next: motherhood. Equally planned, complete with lists of pros & cons. Once again, I tried to “take lessons” – attended classes, read books, and so on. The difference was, this choice was irrevocable. For the first time in my life, I entered into something that I could not take back. Motherhood happens so quickly, and there is no trial period! People have described the first year of motherhood as being something of a chrysalis. Now that I am on the other side of that year, I understand the poignancy of this description. But I think that a better metaphor that becoming a mom is like jumping in off a diving board. There is no shallow end.

Oh, how I struggled in that first year of my first child’s life. I insisted that I was not “really” a mother. I was not “one of those” who would pay exclusive attention to her child. I didn’t obsess over things the way that “stay-at-home” moms would. I was different, special, not fully subsumed in the role. And yet… now, Being a mom is part of my being.

In the first years, I constantly argued with my husband about who would take on various tasks. I had to realize that fight as I might, no one would take these tasks away from me; there was no one to hold me up. But I wasn’t really sinking. Indeed, I refused to dip below the water line for long. I learned how to manage all of these new movements to keep my head up. And one day it became… dare I say it? Not effortless, but thought-less. Five years later, I find that I now longer have to think about the day-to-day tasks of being a mom. Just as I tread water automatically, so I manage schedule, lunches, playdates, without thinking.

But then the final challenge: how to meld these two roles? Can I kick and float at the same time? I think I’m getting there. After all, I’ve found that my mothering skills help immensely in the Emergency Department. When they throw tantrums, I understand that it has nothing to do with me. When they are whining I know that they really just need a cup of juice and some crackers. When they cause trouble I understand that they’re just looking for attention. When they break down crying I know that they just need a hug. (And I’m not talking about my residents!!)

Conversely, I’ve found that my medical skills are helpful at home. As much as I try not to be a doctor with my children, I can’t help judging their scrapes, rashes, and fevers with a medical eye. I look at how much they’re eating, how they’re drinking, what they do after they tell me their belly hurts… and I make what I hope are somewhat more educated decisions. I also know when to not freak out – something that too many people these days, scared by everything from BPA to H1N1 to thimerosal, are prone to do.

Each transition has contained moments of tremendous frustration, fighting, anger, unwillingness to capitulate, and yes, feeling like I was drowning. But I think that I may finally be learning how to swim through life.


Emergencymom is an academic emergency physician and public health researcher on the East Coast.  She is proud mother of 2 (aged 4 & 1), and wife of a small-business-owner.  Her work-home balance is precarious, but generally enjoyable.  She still can't believe that she gets to do research for half her work-week!  She welcomes suggestions on how to get 4-year-olds to stop whining, how to have dinner cook itself, and how to not be perennially 1 hour shy of a good night's sleep.

First Call

It's my first overnight call in the hospital. It's 7pm and I've been at work for 13 hours. There are 16 more hours to go. My arms are halfway through the portholes of an isolette and my hands are cradling the tiny hand of one of my patients who needs a blood culture and screening labs. I am shush-shush-shush-ing the baby as I choose my spot, swab it with alcohol, and pierce the skin quickly and definitively, trying to cause as little pain as possible. My pager phone is buzzing and beeping against my hip, the nurses are mobilizing, talking, helping each other do all the things this sick baby needs done, but for the moment it is just me and this hand and the artery that is hidden a few milimeters beneath the skin. After a few adjustments of the needle, the red arterial blood flashes into the needle, travels up the tubing, and begins to fill the syringe. My shoulders start to unknit themselves and I take what feels like my first breath in a while. Thirty seconds pass as the syringe slowly fills. There's nothing else I can do for the moment but stand here. I haven't stopped moving and doing and thinking and worrying for the past 13 hours, so this feels like a break. The baby is chewing on his pacifier, looking around for the source of the sting, and our eyes meet for a moment before the blood hits the 2cc mark and I retract the needle into its hub. "Thanks, little man," I whisper to him softly, grateful to have gotten the blood, grateful that I don't have to cause him more pain with a second stick, grateful that I don't have to call the fellow to come and help me, grateful for the couple of breaths I took and whatever small thing passed between us. In the time it took for the stick -- no more than three or four minutes -- four new pages have come through and I am needed in four places at once and I don't breathe again until well after midnight.

*          *          *          *          *

The most recent change in the ACGME medical training rules happened when I was a fourth year medical student. At the time, all the protest over the limitation of interns to 16 hour shifts seemed silly to me. How could anyone protest a seemingly more humane schedule? What was the big deal? Then I got to intern year and began to understand the widespread dissent. The day-float, night-float system featured constant signout -- on long call days, I would spend 2-3 hours of my day signing out. I worked 13, 14, 15 hours six days a week, enduring the pain of long separations from my child, often staying up late working on notes and discharge summaries -- and still there was never enough time to see patients, with rounds and conferences and notes and sign out and the endless to-do lists. Most disturbingly, I felt like I wasn't learning as much as I expected. Admitting a patient was more a matter of administrative work. There was never the opportunity to travel with the patient through the process of diagnosis and treatment. At best I would put in the initial orders, then sign the patient out to the night person. Nights were a little better, with more opportunity to actually see patients and think about them, but six consecutive 15 hour days left me feeling exhausted and was hugely disruptive to my family. I began to feel resentful all the time. Worse, I began to forget why I went into medicine in the first place.

As second year neared, I was filled with both apprehension (would I actually be able to function for 30 hours in a row?) and excitement for the switch to a Q4 overnight call schedule. What was I looking forward to? The time to actually see patients. The chance to spend at least one out of every four afternoons with my daughter. The chance to admit and then follow my own patients instead of picking up overnight admissions and shuffling patients when one or another team member switched to nights. The sense of mastery that would come with being able to manage patients by myself overnight. I was hoping to fall in love with medicine again.

*          *          *          *          *

It's 3:30am and even though I should be trying to catch a little sleep during a lull, I am worrying about sodium. One of my patients has a sodium of 129. It's not low enough to panic, but it's not normal. It's not low enough to call the fellow who has probably already gone to lie down but it's low enough to make me lie awake in the dark, wondering if I should intervene or not intervene, wondering if I should call the fellow or not, feeling like this is the kind of problem I should be able to solve on my own. I get up and turn on the light in the small call room and set about reading about neonatal hyponatremia, which confirms that the baby is not in danger. I could go down on his fluids, but he is losing more than the typical amount of fluid through his unrepaired myeloschesis and there has been concern all day for poor urine output. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that he is fluid down with a sodium of 129. I go around and around in my head, weighing the sodium level against the risk of insensible fluid loss. I decide to recheck a level in the morning and leave the fluids where they are. It's a small decision but it keeps me tossing and turning for the interrupted hour and a half I have to rest before the morning work starts. When the BMP pops up at 6am, my heart catches in my throat for a moment. What if his sodium is 121? It's 130. On rounds later in the morning, we decide to leave the fluids where they are. For the team it's a small decision -- no one even notices -- but for me it's the end of an arc of learning: how to tolerate the anxiety of uncertainty, how to make a clinical decision when there are no protocols to follow, how to think through a problem and come up with a safe solution. If I had been there with a senior resident, I would have just asked them and they would have changed the fluids or not changed the fluids. I would have slept better. But I would have been no farther along in my ability to take care of patients independently.

Post-call rounding is a whole new experience. I know all the patients and what has happened to them over the past 24 hours. I was there yesterday when decisions were made on rounds and I watched these decisions play out. I have listened to these lungs, stared at these monitors, felt these bellies all night long. I am the one who was here. For the first time, none of the patients on rounds are new to me -- they are all mine. I have the opportunity to get feedback from the attending about my overnight decisions, learning that will stick with me forever. Even though I am exhausted, it is exhilarating. I go home, sleep for a few hours in the afternoon, then have the incredible treat of going to pick my daughter up at day care, something I could almost never do on the intern schedule. I have a normal evening with my family, full of all the quotidian details of dinner, bath, and bedtime that are my secret paradise. By the next morning, I am ready to dive back in.

*          *          *          *           *

The new duty hour rules were well intentioned, designed to keep patients safe and minimize the ill effects of sleep deprivation. But I think there needs to be some consideration of what may have been lost. The danger of sleep deprivation has to be balanced again the the burn-out associated with the relentless march of long days without the high-yield learning and sense of connection to patients bourne of the shared journey of an entire day. Being awake for 30 hours is hard. But feeling like a mediocre doctor while seeing my family for an hour a day for most days every month was much, much harder.

I'm curious to what other people think about the "new" (now not so new) duty hours.

How's your summer?

Since you asked...  If it weren’t for her dose of chemotherapy q 3 weeks and some iatrogenic wbc-boosting induced bone pain, it’d be fine.  And yet, my mother and I are still having a reasonably good summer.  Slowing it down a bit and being together.  Even if the togetherness is while we have a picnic in the chemotherapy suite, or while we walk to the local pharmacy to pick up a medication refill. 

Because nothing says bonding with your mom like shaving her head.  She reminds me that early on I’d wanted a career as a hairdresser.  Alas, now there is no hair. But to my pleasant surprise she is the same strong, smart woman with or without her hair. 

Hats abound.  Tennis caps, floppy sun hats, indoors or outdoors.  They suit my athletic mother --who scheduled her first chemo treatment around her tennis game-- better than a wig.

So how’s your summer?

Taking it one day at a time.   Fortunately or unfortunately, I can conjure up that old car commercial ("this is not your father’s Oldsmobile") and say this is not my father’s chemotherapy.  That was another summer 20 years ago, a different regimen, and for an incurable disease.  This time around it’s like cancer 2.0 with a better chemo concoction and a much better prognosis.

And how do you like this summer heat?

I’m trying not to sweat the small stuff, but sometimes I have trouble figuring out which is the small stuff.  Even now, when I should have perspective on what matters most in life.  Sometimes when I’m stressed about the big stuff, the small stuff makes me sweat too.  I’m working on it.  And overall, it’s been a good effort in rebalancing.   It’s mid-summer and there are lots of balancing acts, being here in the middle.  As I am a doctor but not her doctor.  As I care for mom and am a mom.  As my mother cares for her mother and for her daughters and for her grandchildren.  Chemo more than halfway done and yet other treatments still ahead.  So we try not to sweat the small stuff.  Unless it’s while on a jog or on the tennis court.

Beautiful complexity

Every time I talk to a friend whom I haven’t talked to in a while, they ask, “How is it?” Referring to my newfound life as a mama-doctor-wife.

Although it changes depending on the type of day I’ve had, my response generally goes something like this: It is the most beautiful, scary, complex, overwhelming, inspiring, difficult, challenging, heartbreaking, soul-stirring thing I have ever experienced.

Words escape me. How do you explain what it’s like to run a code on an ex-premature infant with bronchiolitis? How do you explain being the ranking Pediatrician in house overnight at your community hospital? How do you explain the multi-layered thought process each treatment change entails? How do you explain the sheer joy you experience as you FaceTime with your husband and toddler before their bedtime while on a break in the hospital? How do you explain what it’s like to work with folks that you find absolutely, positively inspiring and others soo ridiculously frustrating? How do you explain how one second you are “Dr. Mommabee” writing orders and making decisions about who to transfer to the PICU and the next you are “Mommy” who is taking orders and making decisions about dinner options that your toddler won’t spit out and throw on the floor?

Some days I am beyond exhaustion. Others I am bouncing to upbeat tunes in my head. Some days I am extremely efficiently. Others I am crumbling into a puddle in the call room paging my Resident-friends and calling my husband for support.

Serving patients while being a wife and a mother is the most beautifully complex reality. I live it. I breathe it. It keeps me up some nights. It wakens me renewed and optimistic.

One of my favorite quotes by the poet Nikki Giovanni is, "i wanted to be an inspiration in the dreams of my people, but the times require that i give myself willingly and become a wonderwoman." This is what we do every day. We give ourselves mostly willingly, sometimes begrudgingly. We are wonderwomen.

limbo

I'm in a strange limbo. I have another three months of fellowship, but I've finished all my major requirements. I go to clinic a few times a week, study for my boards (which aren't until November), work on a manuscript, and try to muster the courage to ask all those "dumb questions" during this last period before my professional training wheels come off.

I have my nights and weekends off. I pick the kids up early most afternoons and on hot days we go to the pool for a few hours before dinner so that my husband (who works at home) won't be disturbed. I've been baking, which is something I hardly ever do, and we (husband sans children) just finished a two week binge of Breaking Bad. I'm also moonlighting to mitigate some of the financial damage I've done with so much free time.

It's a sweet time, but it's also a strange time. I've wasted too many of my unstructured hours perseverating on the looming change to come. The Move. The Job. I can feel this change near me like the warm heavy breathing of a sleeping animal that's soon to wake up. I'm not scared of it, just aware of it being there.

Perhaps that's a little melodramatic. We've moved a lot in the last fourteen years, got married, had a few kids. Most people I know have undergone at least one, if not a few, major changes during the same time period and more often that change included a cross country or international move. We aren't moving that far and someone else is going to do the actual move for us.

But, for the first time time since I left for college, that move is home, rather than to a city I (correctly) anticipated to be a 3 or 4 year pit stop along the way to... well.. somewhere else I guess.  

While I wouldn't call it a regression, "going home" has, until just recently, entailed a component of just that. I stay with my parents in the house where I grew up. My mom cooks. My dad and I watch reruns of Law & Order with huge bowls of ice cream. We talk about the neighbors, high school sports, and the weather. I don't usually venture far from where they live, which is fairly suburban and removed from the "hipster-chic" elements that have birthed stereotypes of the city- unrecognizable to me- in the time since I've left.

I am unsettled by the idea of living as an adult in a city I've only known as a kid, especially as now, at the completion of my training, when I am expected to act more independently than I have at any previous time in my life, professional or otherwise. I wonder if I will ever feel grown up in a place that reminds me of being 17.

Moving home. More complicate than I had anticipated. 

I'm Nervous, And I Think That's a Good Thing

I've been practicing pathology for about 6 years, after 4 years of medical school and 6 years of training.  Cases that I used to pore and sweat over have become routine.  Sure, there are always cases to challenge your brain, share with your colleagues, or send out for expert consultation, but after 6 years I have cruised into a "more comfortable" zone.  I can triage efficiently, and getting called to radiology for wet preps or to the OR for frozen sections is no longer a paralyzing experience (for the most part).  The wall I built around myself, the mask of confidence hiding insecurity, has slowly come down.  I can relax and banter with my colleagues while deciding if there is cancer on the slide or not.  I think this is true of all pathologists that are a few years in - I laugh when I think back to what I agonized over during my first two years in private practice.

Last year the partner in charge of CAP (College of American Pathology) lab inspections retired.  I volunteered to take his place, as a team leader.  We are in charge of lab inspections for three hospitals - every two years each hospital assembles a team to lead an inspection.  I did my first one last November - whew it was a blur.  I had a veteran compliance officer leading me through.  "Even a blind pig can find an acorn every once in a while," I kept thinking as I went through that inspection.  I was prepared, but shell shocked by the strange experience.  This time she is on vacation.  I am in charge.  Luckily I am leading a brilliant, experienced team that will make my job much easier.

I became a pathologist to hide behind a microscope.  With a few exceptions, such as being interviewed on TV with the Swine Flu breakout, I've been able to maintain my anonymity.  Lab inspections fly in the face of anonymity.  I interview the hospital CEO's, the lab directors, the medical Chief's of Staff.  The team has specific information to mine and report in a very short amount of time.  We summarize our findings in a large room at the end of the day.  Then we go out to dinner and celebrate a hard day's work.  That's the part I'm looking forward to.

I find, as I am preparing for this inspection, that I am grateful for new challenges and experiences to shake me up. It's what got me here in the first place, but it's easy to forget when it becomes, all too soon, remote.  And as the butterflies circle in my stomach as I am going to sleep, I wonder and hope that my fellow MiM's also have new experiences to keep them from banality and boredom.  They must.  It's a part of the job description.

So if you are reading this today, wish me silent luck.  I'm inspecting.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished...

For a long time now, I've been feeling like I need to start giving back. You know: volunteering time, helping people, at least THINKING about others (who aren't my patients or my family). Not like I have alot of free time, as a primary care doc, mother of two little kids, loving wife, and caretaker for two large spoiled cats...

But, it's like a weight, a constant nagging wagging finger saying "YOU ARE SO FORTUNATE. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD?"

I don't think doctoring counts, either, because it's my job. I try to be caring, and I try to go above and beyond (within reason), and I like my job, but it doesn't count. I get paid to do this.

Yeah, we go to church, but that doesn't count either, as we get more out of church than we give. I really, honestly, or perhaps predictably, don't do a hell of alot for others.

Not to get all religious on people, but honestly, my family, we're blessed. Or, you could also very agnostically say, we're very lucky. We have so much: good education, jobs, beautiful healthy children, a safe home and plenty to eat. Last time I prayed, I thanked God for all that we have, and promised to TRY to do more for others. TRY.

So this week, when my elderly neighbor called us out of the blue to say hi, I ended up asking her if she needed anything, like, say, a trip to the grocery store? She can't drive anymore, and as I chatted with her, it occured to me that our neighbors who usually take her food shopping are away on vacation. I suspected that her call was a way of reaching out for help.

She jumped at my offer, said she hadn't had some basics in some time, and we agreed that I would swing by and pick her up after work, yesterday. I offered up my offer to God as proof that Hey, I'm trying!

Well, yesterday I barely got out of clinic in time to make it to her house at the appointed hour. Then there were torrential downpours and flash floods... The sky dumped on me as I ran to my car, and of course I was wearing a long skirt, and the hem got soaked, and then it got all caught up around my legs, and then I tripped and slipped and cut my heel against a curb. I made it to my car, but only to sit in a massive traffic jam as one lane of the expressway was closed due to flooding. It was the worst traffic jam I had ever been in. I called my husband to say I would be late and asked him to call our neighbor.

Long story short, I was over an hour late to her house, and I saw her tiny, frail face peeking out through the lacy curtain on her front door window. I called out my apologies.

Not to worry, she said, I expected traffic would be bad with all this rain!

I (of course) had to pee, but she was all set to leave, and I was too late to go use my bathroom, and too embarassed to ask to use her bathroom. As she fretted with her umbrella and her house key, I decided to just deal with it.

I noticed that she had done her hair neatly, put on lipstick, and a nice blouse with a flowered brooch at the neck... This may have been her first foray out of the house in some time.

We got to the strip mall where her favorite small grocery store is, and she asked if she could also stop at the pharmacy there as well... Of course I said yes, and we agreed to meet up at the cash registers at the small grocery next door.

I figured I would be moving faster than she, so I dawdled and lingered over the fruits and vegetables. I checked out the gourmet chocolates and the imported Italian foods in jars. I tried not to think about how badly I had to pee, and thought about asking to use the grocery's bathroom, but then was worried it would be gross, or that my neighbor would come looking for me in the interim.

Time passed. I called my husband to let him know I would be even later than expected. I decided to check out with my groceries and put them in the car and then go looking for lovely neighbor.

I found her in the salad bar aisle, packing up this petite salad in an itsy little container, and she couldn't get the top on. I helped her and accompanied her on the rest of her shop. She actually needed help with alot of things, with reaching up to get things higher up on the shelves, to lifting a bag of discounted corn on the cob, to picking out appropriate sweet potatoes and finding the bread she likes (she can't see that well). We realized that we both love vanilla soy milk. I realized that life must be very hard for her, and my heart went out to her (even as my bladder was about to burst).

We made our way to checkout and then to the car and then to home, and I helped her with her bags. She said Thanks, I really appreciated your asking if I needed groceries, since I didn't have bread, and if I at least have bread, I feel so much better...

She has no family nearby to help her, and is completely reliant on neighbors and folks from her church. Again, I thanked God for all that we have, and especially for our family.
I made it home, and finally, after big hugs to my kids and a peck on the cheek for patient hubby, I got to thankfully, and gloriously, pee. I thanked God for that, too.
Next stops: our town's food pantry and the local animal shelter...

Bibliophile

Now that my baby is a little older, I've gotten back into the habit of reading chapter books to my oldest before she goes to sleep.

I started off by reading her books I loved from my childhood, like The Twits or Wayside Stories. But then I realized it's more fun if I haven't read the book and I'm curious to know what happens too.

Recently we finished Matilda, which I never read as a child. Loved it! We tried the Ramona series, but we both got bored on book one. Now we're reading a series called Judy Moody that's a little cheesy but Mel really likes it. Plus the whole series is available free on the Kindle library.

What do you read to your kids?

Life, loss, and celebrations of love

I have written and re-written this post several times. I felt some drafts were too personal and others too impersonal. I have so many thoughts and emotions, but here are the ones that I would like to share:

Today is Julian’s birthday. The day, my nephew was stillborn. Today I honor the life that he lived in his mommy’s womb. Today I send love into the world in honor of him. His life and birth have changed me in ways that I still am struggling to comprehend. Today I have greater compassion for families who experience the loss of their precious little ones. Today I have greater understanding of the grieving process, though not intimately and daily tied to it as a parent would, I have experienced it in waves and ripples as an Auntie does.

Today I send prayers out into the Universe for all those who experience stillbirth or the loss of a child. Today I send love to Julian’s mommy K and daddy T. K is a public health professional and T, an Infectious Disease Fellow, and together, they are one of our closest couple-friends. We rely on them in good times and in bad. And we are honored that they rely on us as well. Our friendships have grown over the years and we now regard them as family; especially over this last year.

As I reflect 1 year after Julian’s birth, I remember rubbing K’s baby bump, hearing her tell us about his development, all of the parent discussions we had had while we and they were pregnant (such as how to choose a Doula, risks and benefits of circumcision, feeling like a milk-maiden while breastfeeding). I remember the pain and grief we experienced learning of Julian’s stillbirth. I remember not knowing what to say or do. I remember our first conversations when he was born. I remember our continued conversations after his birth.

So today I celebrate Julian’s birth. I still wish we could have held him. I still wish he could have breathed and been nurtured by T and K, but those months he lived in his mommy’s womb were filled with soo much love. As I celebrate Julian’s birthday my heart is filled with joy that T and K will be welcoming a new baby to the world this January. In many ancient spiritual traditions, there is the belief that those who are lost are always with us, that they watch over us, and that they return to us when they are ready. This belief comforts me and gives me strength. I know that this experience with loving and losing Julian has fortified my friendship with his parents, it has increased my compassion for those dealing with loss and has made me more loving and understanding. In this I celebrate Julian’s life, I grieve our loss, and I celebrate the love that we all have shared.

MiM in Stanford's SCOPE

MiM was recently featured in Stanford's SCOPE magazine. Here's the interview. Thanks for being a part of this community. Our voices matter.

Strangers and my Renewed Fear of the Dark

Sometime during pregnancy, I began to see issues facing families and children through different eyes. I began to see and feel them using my newfound “mommy-sense”.

When I first heard of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a man-CHILD, my heart ached. His family had allowed their son to go to the store and he never returned.

My first thoughts were what his last moments must have been like. My mommy-sense took me through the events time and time again. I try to block it out, but I keep going back to it: 

Walking home in the twilight, almost dark. You are approached by a STRANGER. What do you do? 
I was taught and had planned to teach my son to:

1. Never talk to strangers

2. If necessary, run away from a stranger

3. If absolutely necessary, fight (because you don’t know if that stranger is trying to kidnap or hurt you)

My heart hurt because what I was taught and what Trayvon may have been taught resulted in his shooting death and the MAN who shot him has been acquitted of his murder. Regardless of your belief in the legal validity of the verdict, a child was approached by a stranger (not someone who identified himself as a police officer) and that stranger ended up fatally shooting him.

I talked to a Public Defender family member today and I am trying to understand the specifics of the law, but my mommy-sense keeps taking me back. Back to what I should and will teach my brown son who will someday become a tall brown man like my husband. My husband has shared countless stories over the years about how women clutch their purse when he walks by even as he is holding our infant son, how he has been profiled by the police, how he began feeling hostility from female strangers even as a child. I shudder that someday we will have to help our son navigate these prejudices.

Also, what, as a Primary Pediatrician should I teach the young male children of color that I work with every day that is within the harm-reduction paradigm I soo often defer to? We have fought in my state to have the right to discuss gun-safety (do you have a gun in your home? Do you keep it locked?) with parents and we often teach about car safety, but what are we teaching the brown boys for whom homicide is a leading cause of adolescent death?

Do I teach these young men and my son, as my father and my husband were taught, that many people will see them as threats regardless of where they are going and what they are doing? How do I instruct him and my patients to be strong and proud, to not bend to stereotypes, when at any moment they may be seen as a threat, challenged, harassed, assaulted, and possibly killed? What do I tell them to do when approached by a stranger, not a police officer, on the street? What do I tell them when our justice system still hasn’t figured out what to do with these prejudices?

I now fear strangers more than ever. I fear them for myself and I mostly fear them for my son, my nephews, and my patients. I am now more afraid of the dark than ever before. I shudder for the day when I have to allow my little man-CHILD to venture unaccompanied at night. I fear the prejudices others may have of those who look like him. I fear the advice I may give to him about strangers: don’t talk, run, and fight if you must. I am fearful that this evasive tactic may itself be seen as a threat. I am fearful that adults can kill children and it be brought into the light and nothing happen.

What will you tell your children? What will you tell your patients? What will you tell parents after such tragedies? Are you as afraid as I am?

MiM Mail: Choosing a specialty when you like a lot and love nothing

Hello MiM,

I am new to your blog but have recently spent countless hours reading past posts to hopefully gain some insight (and to avoid studying for step 2). I am a MS4 who just finished 3rd year rotations and am desperately trying to figure out what I am going to do with the rest of my life. Honestly, I did not have that "Ah-ha" moment in medical school when I found something I absolutely loved and knew it was what I was destined to do. I liked most of my rotations, of course some more than others, but nothing blew me away, and I am very disheartened by this.

Right now I am trying to choose between applying to Ob-Gyn and Internal Medicine. Very different, I know. But I like Ob a lot - dealing with relatively younger, healthier patients, working with just women (mainly), and being a surgical and medical specialty is appealing. It was definitely my favorite rotation of third year. However, I never pictured myself as an OB and to be frank, I am quite terrified of their perceived lifestyle. I am 27 years old, married to my high school sweet heart and love of my life, and my family is everything to me. We do not have any kids yet, but definitely want 2 or 3 in the (near) future. My mother was a stay-at-home super mom who never missed a school function or dance recital. Obviously, choosing a career in any field of medicine means that that won't be me; however, I feel if I become an Ob-gyn it will be that much more difficult. I really like delivering babies, but am I still going to like it when I am 45 years old at 3am or when I am missing my child's school play?

If I chose internal medicine, I am basically saying "I haven't decided what to do yet" and it gives me an extra year to put off the decision. Internal medicine has so many different fellowships that I feel I will be keeping my options open. And although I am a big fan of the OR, a non-surgical specialty will help with my hours and my call schedule.

Basically, I like a lot, and love nothing and I am hugely disappointed by this. I have wanted to be a "doctor" since I was a young girl, and have worked so hard to obtain my MD; but, right now I feel lost.

As a woman, I feel it is so much harder to choose a specialty. At the end of the day my family is number one and I want to do what is best for them. At the same time, I have spent so much time and money and worked so hard to get where I am that I don't want to sell myself short. I feel like I have to choose between what is best for me personally and professionally.

Sorry for the insanely long rant. I just really need some solid advice - really ANY advice at all. Please help me, MiM!

Sincerely,
One confused MS4