something to look forward to

     Somewhere along the line during our frantic training, we're supposed to figure out what we want to be when we grow up.  Some students come into school with that already decided.  They're usually the surgery type.  Others figure it out during the first two years.  But most don't know until the third year.  That's when we start rotating through all the major divisions of medicine.  I had some ideas about what were important to me and accordingly some fields fell onto My List of Considerations. 

1. Family Medicine
2. Internal Medicine
3. Ob-Gyn
4. Oncology
5. Emergency Medicine

     Each had their appeal and their detractions.  ER was a rush but that could also mean burn out.  Ob-gyn got to see the start of life with all the hope and promise but the hours flat out suck.  Oncology, well, I don't need to elaborate on that one if you've read me at all.  Family vs Internal medicine both involve some similarities and was a source of conflict in deciding.  I wanted to see how they worked in real life before I decided.  The day to day grind meant as much to me as the type of patients or diseases. 

 

     I did not expect help from my son in figuring out what specialty was going to appeal to me.  See, he recently turned 16 and we were hemming and hawing about what kind of vehicle to get him.  As fate would have it, a jeep for sale was out front of the small hole-in-the-wall restaraunt that I've been frequenting for over a decade.  I used to have a jeep.  Had to sell it when my wife was pregnant with said son.  Something about a car seat not being safe in a rag top jeep without doors.  She had a point.  So I didn't need much convincing to get me, I mean my son a jeep.  So along with some help from his grandma, we got this.

 

 

     I'm not sure who loves it more - me or him.  My wife keeps reminding me, it's not mine (although the name on the title begs to differ).  And so what does this Zombie Outbreak Response Vehicle have to do with my selecting a field of medicine???  It's helped solidify an idea that's bouncing around in between the cobwebs of my head.  Rural medicine.  Smaller town doc who does a little bit of everything, and I mean everything since there are fewer specialists out where one can breathe.  The doc who actually knows his patients.  Who knows and treats generations of the patients.  And a doc who lives on some land where he can't see his damned neighbors because they're too far off in the distance.  Maybe a bit overly romantic, but this jeep has kindled something that was already there.  Aside from that, I feel like it's pulling me out of a deep, deep pool of shit which is where my life has been these past few years.  Did I mention the jeep has a 12,000 pound winch on it?  Good thing, too, as you can see below.  Everyone's life needs one of these to pull one's psyche out of the depths of hell and give it something to look forward to.