God-Awful

My husband was talking to a non-medical friend at a party the other night, and he referred to internship as being "god-awful." I immediately turned to him and corrected him.

I do not think internship is god-awful.

In fact, I have been fairly happy lately.

Yes, I have been really stressed out. I have cussed out loud while getting gang-paged and dropping the call pager into a cup of coffee. I have been (unintentionally) surly to nurses who have paged me for 2 am constipation. I have had months where I've been very sleep deprived and cranky. My house is filthy. I almost never cook dinner. I've put weight back on because I am often too tired or busy to go to the gym. Sometimes I snap at my husband out of stress and anxiety.

It's also true that I've been to 2 excellent rock concerts and 1 symphony concert since starting residency. I've gone to visit my sister. I've made friends with some of my neighbors, who are awesome people (and closed my garage door for me last night, since I left it open by accident). I've kept up with friends nearby and seen 2 friends who moved cross-country for residency. I've read a few non-medical books and played a lot of Rock Band (II was my birthday present!) Thus far, I've kept up my blog, and my reading of multiple blogs (thank you, Google Reader!). We put up our tiny Christmas tree and some really puny Christmas lights, which somehow makes me really happy. My husband remains incredibly supportive through all of this and still spoils me rotten.

In residency, I've almost finished 6 months at several different hospitals, some inpatient, some outpatient. I've taken some call and learned a ton. I've learned a lot about teaching med students and giving on-the-spot feedback (although I'm definitely still a beginner). I found out I really liked internal medicine as a resident, which surprised me (I really didn't like it as a student). In fact, I liked IM so much, I have concerns about how much I'll like psych when I start in January. I'm studying for Step 3 and it's astonishing how much I've learned, how much I've forgotten, and just how much there is that I've never learned about.

Now obviously, I'm not a general surgery intern, or even a medicine intern. Psych internship is relatively cush compared to what many interns endure. I could imagine that other interns are way less happy. Overall, though, when I look at my current lot in life, I'm pretty satisfied, and look forward to where this is all going. So no, residency is not god-awful.

And now, Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate)!