I cannot believe that it has been about 2 years since my last post. The reason why it has been 2 years is quite compelling, you see, I was completing my training in Critical Care and this past June I finished and I am now an Intensivist, also known as a Specialist in Critical Care.

It took me, 13 years from the time that I came up with the concept of going to medical school to follow a dream to completing my training and becoming an Attending.

I now work for a group that specializes in Intensive Care and I go to 4 hospitals. Not in one day of course, but rather I am credentialed at 4 hospitals and go where I am scheduled to. Two of the hospitals have residents there already and that is great because I enjoy teaching and it keeps me on my toes about the material. The third hospital will be getting residents next year, which hopefully means that I will be on faculty and be involved in the developement of the program. The fourth hospital does not have residents and that is fine.

The days of my sleeping in the hospital because I am on call are pretty much done. I come home every night, which my girls love, but the days that I do work I am on call from home. This can mean multiple phone calls at night or no phone calls at night. Of course, if there is an issue I will go to the hospital but that is usually few and far between.

It feels so nice to be able to wake up in the morning and enjoy going to work. I do nto have that feeling of dread that I used to experience knowing that I was going to work the next day. I don't have stress that I am going to be in work environment that I do not like. The stress that I do have is quite significant though. I mean, it is the stress at the end of the day thinking about the critical patients and wondering if I missed something. Or was I on the right track with my diagnosis, or could I have done something more aggressive, was I too aggressive and the patient was suffering when the best thing was to let them go, did we try to resuscitate long enough and if so, what kind of brain damage is there going to be, will this family or the patient sue me because they did not like the outcome even though the patient was sick beyond bringing them back. All of these thoughts are important because there is an epidemic of physician suicide in this country and these stressors are why.

The practice I joined is great because they are taking over from fellowship and continuing my training. Learning how to really run an ICU, aspects of billing and coding that I was never taught, being a mentor to younger doctors.

At the end of the day, I did not want to live with regret. So I bet, and I hit the jackpot. I put my family through a large financial burden but it is paying off now. In more ways than one. I hope to be able to blod more, but this depends on the schedule. I will also try to Vlog more. Again, depends on the schedule.