Ten Years In

My first day as an attending general surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio was August 7th, 2006. I saw one patient with a hernia in the office that day and then, around 430 pm, the call came in from the pediatric ER about a kid with abdominal pain. Some healthy 17 year old boy with obvious early appendicitis. I booked the case, tip-toed my way through the laparoscopic appendectomy uneventfully and went home feeling awful proud of myself. It was exactly how I envisioned a life as a general surgeon. I had been a confident 5th year resident. I hadn't done a fellowship. I had felt ready. I was ready to take on the world.A whole hell of a lot has happened since then. Ten years have elapsed in the blink of an eye. Thousands of cases. Thousands of patients. I have two beautiful kids now, 5 and 8. I was married, then divorced, and now married again. Life rolls on--- you don't realize how it slips away in the accumulative moments, the episodic nature of consciousness, the way we compartmentalize chunks of time. As Auden said:‘In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away,And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or to-day.Nowadays I'm busy as all hell. My clinics are jammed. My OR block times are filled far in advance. I did 900+ cases last year.  I'm on ER call pretty much 180 times a year. I've built a career and a reputation in a pretty competitive market. I drain abscesses and hemorrhoids...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - Category: Surgery Authors: Source Type: blogs