A ukulele helped this physician get through intern year. Here ’s how.

At the beginning of this year, I bought a ukulele. I started intern year at a sprint, like anyone does, arms full of hope which was quickly extinguished, lost in an atmosphere so devoid of hope that all of it flew out of my arms to settle into places so far in between it might as well have been floating in the vacuum of space. The cloak of physicianship burdens upon you suddenly not just the obvious — the responsibility for human lives — but also darker, sinister things that are similarly heavy: a power over people nobody shows you how to soften, a tradition of institutional oppression that’s now officially dirtied your own hands, the towering knowledge that much of the time medicine is hurting people. Adjusting to the new responsibility of being a doctor felt really impossible. In a hospital, there is no luxury of the mundane to fill in the gaps between flashes of drama. Going to work every day was a new jack-in-the-box of horrors, each one a stab at the raw place in me that bleeds for people but which progressively softened my cringe reflex into something that was like having the chills almost all of the time, hair on perpetual end. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Hospital-Based Medicine Psychiatry Residency Source Type: blogs