My life since July 1 (the stress): Still trying to find time to read, drinking from a fire hose, late nights, early mornings, add on cases late at night, busy call, lectures all the time, research deadlines, poster printing, knowing nothing, different expectations for each attending, trying to find time to study, googling in patient exam rooms because I have never heard of their disease before, falling asleep at the microscope in the OR, trying to get home before my kids go to sleep every single day, failing to get home before my kids go to sleep many days, working my tail off to find time to get one post a month done on shortwhitecoats!
My life since July 1 (the amazing): Waking up chomping at the bit to get to work and learn more, the most incredible surgeries in the world, patients who can’t stop talking about how much you’ve changed their lives, blind to 20/20 in days, seeing the retina….all of it, working with incredible faculty who change the way I will think…forever, grand rounds that blow me away, watching individual RBCs moving through vessels at the microscope, an unexpected and awkward hug from a patient, stopping dead in my tracks once a week and thinking ‘this is so freaking cool!”, going in at 6am leaving at 9pm and not wanting to trade it for anything else.
Student doctors, take advantage of the time you have to make movies like this one. But with each hour of disappearing free time, your career will become that much more incredible.
My name is Andrew and I am a first year resident training to be an ophthalmologist. I created ShortWhiteCoats to provide medical students, residents, and the public with all the information I spent so many hours looking for during medical school.
