I got a Nudge From the Universe Today…

Hello!

This is going to a bit more unusual of a post than what I normally post. So let me set the scene for you, and I’m just gunna jump right in…

A few weekends ago I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Joplin. I had just arrived and was starting to unpack all of my books and notes. I had a test the next day, and as always, was hoping to get in a few hours of productive study time. The mountain felt high, but I was hoping to chip off a little bit before the exam. Let’s call it extremely hopeful.

Yes, yes… I was that: hopeful.

I was still in good spirits, but also still feeling like I was drowning. Which is the usual feeling in med school.

In hindsight it probably didn’t really matter if I studied at all that day. But I digress.

While opening up my books, a man who had set himself up at a table nearby was walking back. He politely stopped and asked me what I was studying.

Now, I sometimes forget how friendly people are in Joplin. In Michigan, most people aren’t this friendly. And you usually aren’t approached at a coffee shop unless you dropped something or some girl wants to compliment your dress/shirt/bag. So I was a bit caught off guard.

The conversation went something like this:

Oh, I have a really big test tomorrow, it’s on all of the cardiopulmonary system and the kidneys.”

Oh? I have lots of people that I know that work in healthcare. In fact, one of them is a nurse. She is on dialysis…

Hmm…Okay. Not sure why that was important. In fact, I was wondering why we were even going this direction. But alright, it’s conversation I guess.

We got to talking and I later learned his name. But for now, let’s call him M.

M eventually told me the the had interstitial lung disease which is now causing him some depression. Ah! I’m thinking, I actually know what interstitial lung disease is! I don’t know it well (even though I was supposed to know it for my last test… but hey, I know it). And before you ask “Joyce, where the hell are you going with this story?” The answer is I’m about to get there. Calm your tits. Please.

Anywho, long story short and he tells me he thinks medicine is poison.

An interesting stance. One that I obviously do not agree with, but one that I’m sure I will come across more than once in my future.

But a point that I nonetheless wanted to talk about today.

As someone who does not have a chronic illness and as someone who lives a relatively healthy life without many restrictions; I clearly do not have the same hurtles, experiences, or struggles as someone who does. I do not know what it is like to have difficulty breathing. To be gasping for air or feel like you might be suffocating on a fairly regular basis or even all of the time. I understand depression, but my encounter with that illness is different from his experience with it. Simply put, I cannot put myself in his shoes because I have absolutely no reference to base it upon.

But I can understand that he is struggling. That he isn’t happy with the cards he was dealt. And as a future physician, I need to be able grasp this.

This conversation lead me to multiple realizations:

  1. People want to be heard.

As a future a physician, it is our job to be able to lend an ear. Most patients don’t just want to be “fixed” or “cured”. They want to be heard. That their struggles are valid. That their emotions about their struggles are valid. Sometimes they just need to vent. And we need recognize that. Yes, you can say that they can be referred to someone else other than you for this. However, a part of our jobs are to have a human-human interaction. And sometimes, patients just need an our ear.

2. Perspective

I seem to be gaining a lot more of this recently. But perspective in the fact that we know what our lives are; we know our struggles, our obstacles, and what we have to do. But we sometimes don’t stop to think that our patients may have a much more difficult time doing the same things as us given their obstacles. It also reminds me that not everyone has a great experience with medicine. And with that, patients are scared, unsure, or may pushback more because of it.

3. It’s okay to disagree with our patients. Respectfully.

But it means we need to try to understand what is important to them. Their goals may be different than your goals. And sometimes as physicians we have to slightly re-align the goals to be more realistic. Other times, we just need to be on the same page.  Is their life meaningful? Can they do the things they enjoy doing? Do they still have the drive to do the things they enjoy? Can they work on accepting that it may take them longer to do a task now than it did previously? All of these are important. But taking time to just chat with your patient to get an idea of where they are at and sometimes gently nudging them or re-aligning their goals can help them immensely change their frame of mind.

4. And lastly and most importantly, we as physicians and as a medical culture need to stop being so afraid to allow death to happen.

This is the biggest thing that I think we sometimes all forget. Medicine can do many wondrous things. It can save lives, it can improve life and quality of life, and it can extend lives. But it can also extend life with the association of declining the quality of life. And that often times, we as physicians don’t do enough explaining or education that death is not necessarily something to be afraid of.

Do I want my future patients to die? Of course not! I want to give them a fighting chance when it is something that they want and it is within reasonable limits. But I also want them to know that it is okay to decline extra surgeries or procedures. It is okay to say no more. Especially if it may prolong their lifespan, but decline their quality of life.

There comes a point in someone’s life where the answer isn’t always a clear “yes, make me better so I can live longer”. When we are young or younger I should say, the answer is always make it longer. Give them a full life. But when you take someone who is chronically ill or elderly, the amount of sickness or chronic diseases start to pile up. I’m not sure our bodies were ever meant to live as long as we typically do nowadays. And as all of those start to pile up, the quality of life goes down. Sure, most of them are easily fixable on their own. Or if they had a perfectly healthy immune system getting something like pneumonia or a urinary tract infection would be easy to clear. But when put with someone who does not have a healthy immune system, it can seem like attempting to move a very large boulder that is constantly trying to squash you.

So too that, I think as a future physician myself and a lot of my future colleagues need to put our egos aside. We need to start having discussions earlier with our patients about their wants and wishes. So that when shit hits the fan, their family members who aren’t ready to let them go don’t contradict what the patient wants. Because not all family members will agree with what your patient wants. They may be selfish about what they want instead. And even just having that conversation early allows your patients to have the ability to take time and think about what they truly want. Because in some situations, it is better to grant their wishes or let them have a natural death to where they aren’t dying with tubes out of every orifice and hooked up to multiple machines. Or when their heart starts to give out, their defibrillator isn’t constantly shocking them, prolonging death and causing pain.

We also need to be better at discussing that death is not always traumatic. A lot of times, when chronic sickness takes over, your body doesn’t necessarily “kill you slowly”. A lot of times, you will go unconscious because your blood pressure is too low, or you are septic, your metabolites build up in your system, or your heart just gives out.

But it also leads me to this point…

I was sitting there having this discussion with M who I don’t know. This man who clearly wants to vent but also wants to be validated. I thought to myself: I am so wrapped up in my own problems that I forget I have a very fortunate life and situation.

As someone who just came back from Kenya, it is seriously embarrassing to admit that it only took 2 months to forget the perspective I learned while there.

But I also needed this conversation. Call it a nudge. Or maybe a little wind blew in my direction from the universe.

I needed to be reminded of where I was. That yes, this was hard, but that I was doing this so that when a patient like M walks into my office, I can have this conversation with them. That I can reassure them. Listen to them. Allow them that space.

Humans need to feel connected. In a world where we try so hard to be connected via social media, we don’t do a very good job of actually forming connections with people. I’m going to run into having patients who just want to see me to discuss that they are unhappy. To talk it out. For me to remind them or gently nudge them to find the things that they find pleasure in life with. And once that is gone, we should discuss where to go next.

I was at a crossroads in my life before this conversation. The universe gave me a little nudge to remind me that what I’m going through now won’t be the rewarding part. That what I’m doing right this second isn’t what it will be like in practice. That the conversations I have with my patients will be both heartbreaking and rewarding, but worth my white coat.

Just wanted to throw that out there today.

What I did this Summer!

Hello MedHatters!

Courtesy of giphy.com

How is everyone? This will be posted incredibly late. But you know what? I don’t care. I will probably need a reminder to be grateful by the time this comes out. Or conversely, I’ll be sad that I’m not still doing these things. So, don’t judge me.

Anywho, we are the first class (or at least the first in a very long time) that we got 8 weeks of summer. The classes before us only had 4. Which really, doesn’t seem fair to them. And yes, a lot of the now third years (a class above me) were not very happy to know we got an extended summer. But I gotta say, having an extra month was G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S.

The goal for this, apparently, was so we would have additional time to do research. It is very hard to convince someone to take you on in their lab when you only have 4 weeks available to participate. I mean, it’s pretty hard to get much accomplished in 4 weeks in a lab. Unless you join an intensive research opportunity (which usually involves an application). And you really won’t have a ton of time to continue doing research once school starts again.

There are some students who will start working in the labs of professors on the KC campus over the summer (or from COB) and try to continue working during medical school. More power to you. I don’t care enough to do that.

BUT!

Most of us are definitely not using that time to do research. Some of us are trying to buff up our CV during the summer with other opportunities, but a lot of us really just want to relax.

And currently while on summer break, it is fantastic to have this much time off! We did have to suffer a bit during the year because we still learned the same amount of material, just in less time on some courses. Despite what they told us (which is that they took stuff out), I’m pretty sure they didn’t. I’m hoping they’ve taken our feedback about this and truly did look at the curriculum and changed it more accordingly to the new time limit. I guess ya’ll next year will find out if they did or didn’t.

Okay, back to what I was saying. Because we have a bit more time, this means I was able to fill up my summer with additional fun things outside of just chilling and doing nothing at home.

Which was great. I did have a few moments that after chilling in my apartment doing mostly sleeping and cleaning with my cat. There were times where it got a bit lonely. But, I definitely had plenty to do this summer!

First week off:

I’m not going to lie, it took a few days, actually almost an entire week, for me to accept that I didn’t have to study. I was constantly freaking out thinking I should be studying something. It took a week + to actually come down off of my almost 10 month streak of constant stress as well. I literally had panic attacks because I wasn’t studying. 

On the flip side, it was pleasant to be able to hangout with my significant other for an entire week without interruptions. No stress from school, looming exams, having obligations in our schedule, none of it. It was simply amazing to basically date him all over again and spend time with him uninterrupted for a week.

Why a week? Well, that was all I could get E to agree on staying past our final exam before he went home for the summer. Maybe I can bargain for longer next summer lol.

Our goal was to try to be active at least every other day that first week. The reason being is one, we like hiking. We haven’t really been able to hike or explore much since school started. Two, for the most part it is cheap to do! Minus the gas money to get somewhere, it was a relatively cheap activity that we spent a couple of hours doing. It was great to be outdoors for both the mind and body, doing some exercise. And three, well we are really out of shape from basically sitting on our butts all year studying. So we wanted to ease into it!

I have so many photos. It’s going to be hard to choose some of my favorites to add here.

Places we went:

  • Lake Bella Vista/Bentonville, AR. They had a massive track around a lake which was flat, but they also had some bike trails in a more wooded area/hilly area. We definitely decided to go on the bike trails because they were more interesting. Totally got my ass kicked as I hadn’t done anything in a while. The flat track was a nice ending to the hike though!

    Us on part of the bike trail path.
    Also found a random 10 commandments chained to a tree at the end of our walk?
  • Springfield, MO. We visited the Nathanael Greene Park which had a small botanical garden area. There were also many other parks within that park. We were rushed out by the rain after
    Some finds during a brief walk through the botanical gardens.

    only being there 20 or so minutes. But! We did get to see some cute bunnies nomming on plants and a ton of beautiful flowers!

  • We also visited the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium while in town. We wanted to continue to explore/walk but wanted to get out of the downpour that occurred while at the botanical gardens. Great aquarium actually! There was much more there than I expected. Some lull areas, but overall really fascinating with a lot of different exhibits. E even had a standoff with a giant octopus (it didn’t like that another large red thing was in it’s space!).

    A beautiful jelly in the aquarium
  • We did explore a bit in downtown Springfield after all of this, but we decided to grab a bite to eat and head home just because we were exhausted from all the walking.  We will have to come back next year and explore more!
  • The last hiking spot we fit in was actually here in town in Joplin. We initially went to check out Grand Falls (a smaller waterfall) but there wasn’t much hiking over there. Looks like a great place to hang out though while hot.

    Octopus standoff!
  • Instead we went to Shoal Creek (formerly Wildcat Glades Conservation). There is a large hiking trail that tracks along the river. The same river you can float down from Grand Falls. It was, incredibly long… I was not expecting the hike to be that long. My feet definitely hurt. As an FYI, there are only 2 spots to cross the river. If you don’t feel like doing the entire trail/oval, make sure you don’t cross the river. Otherwise, you will have to walk the entire length OR grab an uber to get back to the center. There were also two spots out on the trail as they are redoing a bridge. We started in the afternoon but finished in the early evening (after construction crews usually go home) so we just walked along the torn up trail anyways. I don’t recommend doing this while they are doing construction though.
View from our walk on the Shoal Creek Trail. We even got to a see a beautiful eagle!
Hanging with my BFF’s:

I really didn’t get to spend as much time up in KC my first year as I had hoped. I tried to make an effort during part of first semester of first year. I really did. But stress and life happened. The goal was to hang out with my besties as much as I could since they were all staying here and I moved to Joplin.

But because life never goes as planned, I tried to spend as much time up here in KC with one of my besties over the summer. Practically every weekend I would drive up on Friday afternoon/Saturday morning and stay until Sunday night/Monday morning. There were a couple of times where I came mid-week, usually because I had to come to KC for something else. But it was fantastic to get to hang out with her as much as I did.

One of my amazing BFF’s. Also, can we just appreciate how tan I look in this photo? In a race between a ghost, a sheet of paper, and myself, I usually win in how pale I am…

Most of my medical school friends were not in town as they all went home, travelled abroad, etc. I definitely enjoyed being able to just chill by the pool with friends this past summer and chat it out. Or drink. Or both. In general, it was nice to catch up with some of my friends either on campus (again, I have really shitty internet) or bumping into them outside in the community too!

Prepping for kenya:

Honestly, this took up most of my time. There was a fair amount of prepping and shopping that needed to happen before this trip. This trip was expensive to begin with (to cover costs of flight, lodging, food, and travel while we are there), but there was a fair amount that needed to be done and paid for outside of that. Mostly including immunizations and obtaining things on my packing list that I did not have, thought would be good to bring, or in order to take care of my cat while I’m gone.

It was all very expensive. Lots of shopping. Lots of traveling. Lots of packing!

I will be starting a Kenya series that goes over all of this after I come back from my trip. Stay tuned!

How I filled the rest of my time:

Well, one this blog. lol. I finally got the writing bug! There was a time last year where I was writing because I wanted to document and put things out. However, in doing so it almost burnt me out more. I took a brief break from it and thought that as soon as summer hit I’d be motivated again.

Wrong.

I wasn’t motivated until about a week before I left for Kenya. And in all honesty, that might have been just because I was super excited to go to Kenya. But thankfully I had a lot of great ideas that I had stashed away last year and never wrote about. So I’m going to try to write as much as I can before school starts, so I can just focus on school when it gets here.

I played so.much.sims. OMG. I haven’t played this game in forever and I forgot how much I enjoyed it? My computer that was gifted to me in a previous relationship does not have a CD rom drive unfortunately. But E was kind enough to leave his laptop home so I could use his to play! I had a lot of fun just doing this for hours. I know, sad. But I needed a way to veg out seeing as I don’t play video games.

For most of the summer I didn’t read. I wanted nothing to do with a book. My brain didn’t want to think, and for some reason it thought that if I read fiction I was all of a sudden going to have to use my brain…

I know. Doesn’t make sense. I’m realizing that now.

I did bring two books to Kenya with me though. They are the last two in a murder mystery series that I started last summer and just couldn’t get around too. I was pretty positive I wasn’t going to ever actually pick them up. I brought them as a just in case, but low and behold when you are stuck in a car for 6+ hours for a few days, music gets a bit old. So I picked one back up and we will see if I can finish it before school starts!

I did however do some light reviewing. But honestly, I mean super light. If you can call it that. I wanted to relook at some basic skills before going to Kenya. We had a bit of a refresher course while there, but I wasn’t positive that would happen before leaving stateside. I did not however, review anything in first aid OR pre-read for class. This lady wanted all the time not related to school as she could get.

Another thing that took up a large chunk of time was cleaning. Oh Lord Jesus I did so much cleaning. You don’t realize how dirty your apartment is when you are constantly focused on studying. And you also don’t realize how much your cat sheds in the summer until you are actually home and it is on literally everything.

I mean everything. How does she even expend that much energy to shed that much?

Aside from being slightly annoyed by the cat hair, I actually enjoy cleaning. I’m a stress cleaner and I grew up with a mother who was pretty strict about keeping the house clean. So it is nice to have a thoroughly cleaned apartment. That way I can start on a clean slate.

The surprising thing this summer that I was involved with included the mass amount of dealings with my school club. I honestly didn’t think I would have to be this involved this summer. It’s not a bad thing, I will enjoy the fruits of my labor next year. But really, there were quite a few things that boiled over from the year prior. I guess that’s what happen when you run the largest club on Joplin’s campus?

The last thing that I really enjoyed filling my time with this past summer is not characteristic of me at all. I made banana bread. I made it from scratch for the first time ever. I won’t call myself a baker, mostly because I really can’t do much without a recipe in my hand that someone else gruelingly made so I can easily follow it. But I was pretty happy at how well it turned out.

It was very delicious by the way. And very filling.

Much dense. Very banana.

What to do the summer before 1st year:

If you are reading this before starting medical school, I do have some advice on what to do or what not to do. You will likely hear all of this from several current students or former students. But the common theme is this: Enjoy yourself. The summer before is when you will be the most excited about what is ahead in your journey.

  • DON’T prep. You will have no idea what you will need to know. Even talking to prior years, they change the curriculum so often at KCU that even though we just went through it, it likely isn’t the same anymore. So, enjoy your last summer before the craziness begins.
  • DO do whatever it is you want. Cross off things on your bucket list. Hangout by the pool all summer. Go on adventures. Travel. Read leisurely. Do all those crazy crafty things you’ve always wanted to try. Whatever it is you’ve wanted to try or haven’t had time to do, now is the time to do it. You likely won’t have time to do it in school.
  • Eat all the delicious food you want. Because why not? You will definitely stress eat. A lot of us gained weight our first year. We sit most of the day, stressed out and studying. We eat I would say a fair amount because we use our brains so much, but a fair amount of us just don’t have time to go to the gym or are so stressed out that we can’t balance the weight we gain with our current lifestyles. And honestly, when you are stressed you don’t crave great food. It’s usually crappy stuff you want that is comforting while eating it but not good for you later. That’s okay. Enjoy the guilt free eating or all the delicious food now. LOL.

Thanks for sticking around! If you like what you read feel free to leave a comment, send me an email with questions, or share on social media.