It's going to be a good year

Today I am officially 26 years old so I would like to take this opportunity to reflect a bit, and share my thoughts about the next 12 months which will be a time of tremendous transition and discovery.

For the longest time, I had this idea, this vision, that my life would become complete by the time I graduated from medical school. I used to think that turning 25 would be like flipping a switch and all my dreams and goals would fall into place. By the time I started medical school, I was doggedly set on this notion, fully convinced that it was the best path for me, indeed, the path for which I was destined. In this spirit, I threw myself into a relationship with someone who was far from the ideal life partner I was certain he was meant to be. I told myself that if he wasn't "the one," then my perfect little plan would start crumbling. So I stuck it out for as long as I could - until our jokes about living together and getting married started to become less jocular and more serious. I realized at that point that if I was to adhere to my lifelong imagined future, then clearly I should marry this person. I also realized that if I did marry him, I was certain to be miserable and unfulfilled for the rest of my life. And that had not figured into my idealistic plan.

So, at the tender age of 23, I overhauled my entire approach to my future, my plans, my goals. To myself. It became clear to me that 25 was no magic number. Looking around me, I saw people my age who, like me, were making major life decisions on the basis of fear, uncertainty, and insecurity. I vowed that I would not let myself fall victim to the lure of the path of least resistance. Armed with this new resolution and self-assurance, I did something that the "old me" wouldn't have even considered doing. I took a year off after my third year of medical school. Since I had become more attuned to my innermost yearnings, I knew that I was not ready to graduate and start an internship in 2007. The very thought of it filled me with fear and anxiety, not excitement and anticipation. This major deviation from the beaten path was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. Over the course of my year off, I was able to examine my past, present, and future without the external pressures of school and my peers. I was also able to reaffirm all the reasons I went to medical school in the first place. I attended weddings of fellow classmates with nothing but peace in my heart, whereas the "old me" would have felt sadness and a sense of failure that I was not having a wedding of my own.

I am now 11 months away from becoming a physician. When I ponder that fact, I am still plagued with fear and anxiety. But those feelings give way to a greater sense of anticipation and fulfillment that I have come so far and am truly ready to take this next step in my career. As for my personal life, I have never felt more content and enriched by my relationships with my family and dearest friends. I feel complete at this moment, not because of any outward symbols of success, such as a graduate degree and a husband, but because I have decided to feel complete with what I have, since what I have is priceless. I don't know where I will go after graduation, or who I will meet, or what direction my career will take. But I know that, no matter what, I will be true to myself, so I have nothing to fear.

Home is where the heart is

Take this cool quiz to find the cities in the U.S. best suited to your individual preferences. Here's my list, with the cities I have already checked out in bold:

Baltimore, Maryland
Honolulu, Hawaii
Little Rock, Arkansas
Hartford, Connecticut
Boston, Massachusetts
Providence, Rhode Island
New Haven, Connecticut
Portland, Oregon
Las Vegas, Nevada
Charleston, West Virginia
Frederick, Maryland
San Francisco, California
San Jose, California
San Diego, California
Washington, District of Columbia
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Worcester, Massachusetts
Orange County, California
Oakland, California
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
Alexandria, Louisiana

Not sure how Boston and Worcester both got on there, considering that I love the former and loathe the latter... But of the other cities I've visited on the list, I have to say I concur. Outside of the U.S., I could see myself living in London and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Yes, I realize it has been quite a while since I last updated my blog, and I apologize to my faithful readers. All three of them. :-) But, in my defense, quite a lot has happened in the last few weeks, such that blogging was relegated to the dusty corners of my brain, to be pulled out and cleaned up as time allowed. So I present for your consideration the main highlights of late:

I wrapped up my stint at MGH, which ended in a whirlwind of training the new staff, bidding farewells/see-you-laters to my co-workers and supervisors, and making sure all loose ends were addressed. It was a great year, but definitely confirmed my place in clinical medicine, and not in research.

Along the theme of whirlwinds, my mother and I traveled to India in the last week of June to deal with some ongoing family drama. We're trying to sell her family home and it would be a lot simpler if her brother wasn't the psychotic freak that he is. The whole thing has devolved into legalities and contracts, and my uncle refuses to communicate directly with my mother so they have two lawyers and a real estate broker relaying messages back and forth. Aside from that, the trip was great. Delhi is a lot cleaner than it was three years ago and the weather was quite pleasant since the monsoons have started. My aunt, Nandini, is a riot and it's always great to see her. And we got plenty of retail therapy amidst our stressful meetings and jet-lagged naps. Actually, the jetlag wasn't that bad because I took melatonin to put myself on IST and then back onto EST when we returned. Also, we took a direct flight on Continental from Newark to Delhi, which perhaps counterintuitively, was far more comfortable and stress-free than stopping in Paris or London. After a while you forget you're on a plane and you just nap, eat, watch movies, and walk around as if you were in a tiny house. Seriously.

I have re-entered the wards, working at Memorial Hospital in high-risk obstetrics. It has been incredible. I really missed being in the hospital so it feels great to be back and having real patient interaction. I also forgot how much fun the OR is! This past week I worked the night shift since students typically get to do more and there's more time for teaching. It was exhausting but a great experience. I had one difficult night during which I assisted in the delivery of a 24-week old baby who is currently in the NICU, the delivery of deceased twins who had died at 16 weeks in utero, and a very easy delivery of a perfect baby boy after which the placenta resolutely remained in the uterus, resulting in an OR procedure to remove it. I chose Ob/Gyn because it is on the whole a happy specialty: healthy women with healthy babies. This has been my first exposure to the small but intense area of obstetrics when things go wrong. And the reality is that when things go wrong in a place where things usually go right, it can be devastatingly sad.

Finally, I have begun the application process for residency! There's this whole online rigmarole called ERAS which is used to enter all your information and then you send it off to all the programs you're interested in. My goal is to have it sent off by September. The biggest hurdle is writing my personal statement. I have a rough draft but it's so hard writing something that isn't cheesy/trite/dumb. So I'm putting it aside for now and will come back to it with a fresh outlook in a bit.

Well, that's it in a nutshell. I have one more week of high-risk obstetrics and then I switch to gynecologic oncology which will be a very different patient population and workday. Hopefully I'll have more time to blog and catch up with friends in general. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for being incommunicado. I pray that things are on a downswing...