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AlexVanderpool
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Name: Dave
Location: California, United States
Birthday: 9/28/1977
Gender: Male
Interests: People, Jesus, tofu, showering, being outdoors
Expertise: GI Tract, 10-15 Foot Set Shot (Big Dog), Chinese Fast Food Review, Dinner's Served from all angles, yodeling, asking questions
Occupation: Student
Industry: Medical
Message: message me
Member Since:
6/25/2003
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| It is both and intimidating and embarrassing thing to read old college application essays or journal entries. Embarrassing because of the ghastly naivety of thoughts. Intimidating because, in some way, perhaps you were a better person, more caring, more thoughtful, in your naivety.
This morning, I read an entry I wrote about happiness over 5 years ago.
http://alexvanderpool.xanga.com/190311113/item/
In it, I defended the joy of cherishing and developing relationships - that happiness, and ultimately, what mattered at the end of the day was the quality of relationships. I left for work this morning praying that this concept would be how I lived today.
I returned home from the hospital 12 hours later, emotionally, physically, and mentally confused and drained. The morning started well enough. I saw 5 patients in 20 minutes, deemed them stable, and started to write notes. I even spent a few extra minutes with an elderly lady who was fed up of being on dialysis, in the hospital multiple times a month, and with the whole medical system.
I walked over to the ICU, and that's when the mayhem struck. Over the next several hours, I proceeded to put various catheters in a patient who was coding, performed CPR until my arms felt like lead, all the while, trying to manage multiple other sick patients, the pages and needs of nurses, the orders and input of my fellow and attending, and trying take care of the emotional needs of my forlorn post-call intern. In the middle of this, I was talking to consultants and experts to try elaborate things like urgent dialysis, balloon pumps, and transvenous pacing to keep this one gentleman pharmacologically alive.
By the time I was able to sit down to collect my thoughts, it was 2pm, and there was another patient in the ED, who I was told, was extremely sick. I rushed down there, gathering together extraordinary amounts of data in 10 minutes, while speaking to the ED staff, the patient's family, and consulting with my Cardiology fellow. The lady looked like death, but I needed to rush upstairs to deal with other patients demanding to be discharged at a reasonable time, patients to be called in for transfer, blood that needed to be drawn after 7 other people had tried and failed.
I ate and drank for the first time since breakfast at 5:00pm.
What is happiness in the midst of such a mess of demands and activity? Intermittently throughout the day, I thought back to the morning and what I had written 5 years ago about finding ultimate fulfillment in pursuing deep relationships, and the quality of our lives being measured by the quality of those relationships. The idea seemed so abstract, and I seemed to be failing horribly throughout the course of the day.
In medicine, oftentimes, success is measured by keeping people alive, working hard without grumbling, and being able to deal with extraordinarily stressful situations with a calm and logical mind. I live about 95% of my days in the hospital with these rather low goals. In the midst of so many interactions, demands, and tragedies simply from a single day in the hospital, how can I treat people thoughtfully, lovingly, without functioning simply on autopilot, trying not to screw up, to burst out in anger at another silly request? How can I place the thing I claim to be the one most important thing at the center of all the demands?
I came home, overwhelmed, but not quite sure how to view this particularly difficult day in the hospital in the context of relationship. I can't even recall most of what occurred, and who I spoke to, during the day.
So this is all to say that I'm still working this out. It would be an easy out, simply to wish that residency and this period of life would be over soon. But I want to know how to continue to build my inner life, grow my bonds of friendship with people I care about far away and who I see every day in the hospital, develop my love relationship with my wife, my connection with my baby, my devotion and dependence on my God, all the while in residency. I don't want this to be a wasted 3 years, that when I approach God's throne when all is said and done, to need to give the account "well, I just got by during those years, and tried not to destroy those relationships most important to me."
I don't want to look back at the outcome of these past 3 years, and feel embarrassed about how I lived, but rather, intimidated by how much more thoughtful, caring, and true I stayed to the most important things, in the midst of so much opportunity to care, heal, and think for others.
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| It's the eve of the my last day on the general surgery service, and with my bedroom window open, I can feel Autumn finally starting to settle into the Boston area. For the first time in months, the air has a permanently crisp, cold feel, the night smells like what New England should smell like, and I can breathe a sigh of relief that my 4:30am alarm clock snoozing sessions are in the past. Oh, and football season is upon us. I still think Joey Porter is going to have a break-out year.
What a journey, these last 3 months. I saw people's abdomens opened up with regularity, fell asleep in the oddest positions and places, lost touch with lifelong friends, struggled to stay enthusiastic in the midst of 15 hour days, got cranky, was won over by faithful teachers, loyal fellow student-sufferers, and the cute midnight leg stretches of a 2 lb NICU baby with Down's. And I proposed to E (and she accepted.)
Thus starts our journey to Maui and beyond. Who would've thought we'd have settled on a church, a reception/hotel site, honeymoon plans, and a dress all in 3 weeks, while I was in the midst of my surgery service? God is great.
When we talk about this next year, we are excited. We can't wait to have all of our best friends and family all together in one big room. We (well, I) can't wait to put together the ultimate wedding mix of 90s R&B ballads and hip-hop. (Be on the alert for the first public playing of UNV's "I'm So in Love with you" in 10 years.) Though I love my well-educated, wonderfully fun housemates, I can't wait to move out of the mouse house and finally into a little cheerful apartment with E. We can't wait for the honeymoon in Maui, and sitting in a hot tub looking at the stars with nothing of Boston or medicine on our minds.
Okay, the capricious moment is over. Back to the journey.
Oh, O B II M, start warming up. Our first concert in 10 years is in 7 months.
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| Step 1 is done. Ah, what a wonderful feeling to have all of June to forget every little detail I've spent so much effort cramming into my mind.
Off to Virginia, and then it's on to Caly from the 10th-19th.
Free at last.
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WORK
I've also been thinking a lot about my work and how coming to Boston has changed my habits. Silicon Valley is creative, innovative, cutting edge. Boston, on the other hand,is
academic, scholarly, heavily invested in research and teaching. I've
never been so academically-minded in my life until I came to Boston.
That's good, if anyone is keeping track. It has come naturally to me,
as everyone around me seems to be busy, working. Even my 38-week
pregnant housemate occupies her free time with watercolor and sewing up
things to welcome our newest house member. Meetings
are on-time and always scheduled in advanced. They usually don't run
long. There's almost no late-night
hanging out. In Silicon Valley, it seemed like every other person was
working on some kind of startup. Here, it seems like everyone I meet is
doing some kind of research project. Research,
work, meetings. In the Boston culture, it's cool to be focused,
dedicated, enthusiastic to learn. It's not as cool
to be laid-back, chill, goofy, like I typically am in California.
Or even a rebellious, hot-headed, passionate, thinker-organizer.
Well, I speak in generalizations, if not
hyperbole. But that's how Boston has seemed to this former "Most
Stressed Out"-turned laid back West-coaster. That's okay. Although the
culture is unfamiliar, it's uniquely valuable in its own right. But I
do confess my left-coast leanings.
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DRESSING FOR THE WEATHER
I've also been thinking about the weather. Bostonis
cold. Summer was too short, fall was an overcast/pouring 1-weeker, and
we've been stuck in winter for the past 3 months now. Suffice to say, I
am overjoyed
every time the thermometer hits 40 and when there's blue in the sky. I
guess the rainbow in the gloom is how much more friends in Boston do
appreciate the weather than Californians. On a sunny, warm day, the
whole city seems to be outside.
I still
don't know how to dress for the weather and so I wear the same
jeans-sneakers-blue sweatshirt-black jacket outfit every day,
regardless if
it's 50 or negative 10. Maybe I'm morphing into Alienate. Except when I
go into
the hospital. On Tuesdays, I wear scrubs and stand for 4 hours in the
OR as a
neurosurgeon does amazing things for children who have flown in from
all over the
world. One of the most delightful things I've experienced in medicine
so far is talking with patients' families after the surgeries. I've
never seen so much smiling and appreciation and warmth in a hospital
room as then. I like Tuesdays.
On Wednesdays, I grudgingly dress up as doctor and
pretend I know something about medicine as I go to talk with patients
and practice my physical exam and history-taking skills. Wednesdays are
the days that stretch me. But I'm starting to like Wednesdays too. In
fact, I like most days here in Boston.
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