Aren’t we a happy, cheerful gang…must’ve just cancelled 645 AM lecture!”
If you haven’t lived through a medical-surgical residency, then it is hard to understand exactly what that time in a physician’s life means. There are many ups, such as learning the art of caring for patients and the satisfaction that comes with helping those patients, but also the downside of little sleep and the near complete absence of prior hobbies. I was back in Lexington this past weekend, and it brought back a lot of memories of the 5 years I spent there in training at UK. There are so many good memories of my time there that not a single bad one came into my mind. Outside of work, it was where my wife, Dana, and I started our family and bought our first home. We made some of our best friends there during those years. However, the majority of my time there was spent with my extended family of fellow residents.
Like each member of a family, we all were different with our own personalities. Some of us were very serious while some liked dirty rap music. Some were married with children while others were single and “living the dream.” We would sometimes bicker and argue, often laugh together, and always eat entirely too many donuts when the opportunity presented itself. These were the people that could tick you off, but also the ones who would cover for you so you could go home early and try to catch up on much needed rest. They were the ones who understood the difficulty in finding time to read and study for board exams while balancing time to spend with your spouse and kids. While we were different, our circumstances brought us together where we became friends.
My time in residency was a special one, largely due to the good people I trained with. Despite the long nights spent on-call (q3, seriously!) and the hours of endless surgical cases and daily morning rounds, thoughts of those years always brings a smile to me, and I hope, to each of them.
