As time winds down on the few remaining days of my (hopefully last) clinical fellowship, I find myself confronting a lot of different emotions.. Strangely enough, this is a lot different compared to the time that I was counting down the days to the end of my first subspecialty training. Ss I recall, it involved a lot more reminiscing, and I was even doing a daily picture upload to document the approach of my forthcoming exit from the program.
This time around, the prevailing feeling is one of relief that it is all over. Everyone who has had the experience of training amidst the pandemic has a unique story to tell, the likes of which will have difficulty resonating with others who have not lived through the experience. A lot of adaptations had to be made in order for programs to survive, and ours was no exception. I never thought I would find myself sick and tired of telemedicine consultations, since it has more of that future-tech vibe, but here we are. Zoom fatigue is definitely very real, and hopefully when the time comes for me to resume practice (after the board examinations), people will be brave enough (and completely vaccinated) to engage in face-to-face consultations.
Talking to a miniature image of a person through a camera, screen, and speakers is way different from the personal engagement and interactions of the classic clinic visit. With the latter, the dialogue is more nuanced, and the responses more genuine. People have always talked about the dichotomy of medicine being both an art and science. The science is still there, but the art somehow loses its luster when you limit human interactions to remote exchanges conducted through technology, no matted how advanced it is..
Besides my newly-discovered disdain for teleconsultations, this year has been such a roller coaster of emotions that it is near impossible to consider the sum of all these feelings to be a positive one, Sad to say, this may be the first time I graduate from a program feeling like I never want to come back.. 😞
This isn't to say that I won't be helping out the juniors that would come after me though, but that would actually depend on who will be the juniors entering the program. Fortunately, the new faces we were introduced to seem receptive enough, and I would be happy to help them out as they begin their journey. I can't really spoon-feed them everything though, since we had to tough it out ourselves with little by the way of actual endorsements given the situation of the times... But to be honest, it is getting tiresome making excuses for the higher ups..
I am sure our batch will be compared to those that would follow us, and we would seem like the black sheep who could not do as well as the others, but I hope that we would be remembered as "those guys that kept things going" in spite of everything. It wasn't great or fantastic by any conceivable measure, but at least we survived and put the program in a position to begin thriving again, even though we ourselves will not be there to enjoy the successes that future batches would be able to fully experience...
Let it be known that I am not ungrateful. As a matter of fact, we are extremely thankful to have been in training in spite of everything, and that the bosses went out of their way (for the most part) to ensure that the program would continue through some shape or form. Personally though, it is hard to not feel like a half-baked version of what an actual graduate of the program should be like. However, recent discoveries have led us to conclude that we may not be so different from them after all, but I guess that's a story for another time, if ever.. 😉
I can't wait to put everything behind me, but I also still have so much to do. Today actually marked a big step forward, since I have successfully rested myself the past couple of days, and am fully prepared to face the coming challenge with a renewed vigor and a fresh insight. I had discovered (too little too late) that I was not being myself this past year. I had shifted my way of doing things too much in order to conform to a perceived standard and so that I would not alienate others around me.. But that wasn't me.. Looking back, I realized I had been stifling myself from operating at peak efficiency. The other day, my inner monologue kicked in and I began questioning myself in the car: "What the heck are you doing? This isn't you. What are you so worried about? You got this."
Strange as it may seem, that encounter with my subconscious kind of jolted me awake from my self-imposed hibernation, and right in the nick of time too. I can now approach the coming days with a new kind of resolve because of this healthy change of perspective. I just hope I can sustain this all the way to the submission of requirements and the final examinations.. I'm quite sure I had help from the Big Man Upstairs.. Only He knows me this well, and I'm 100% positive that this is all His doing.. Thank you.. I will do my best. 🙏
