“ When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” or so goes a proverbial phrase. But when the lemons come at the most inopportune times, I say forget about the lemonade; I need to make tequila. And when excrement really hits the fan, I make that tequila extra añejo. Let’s just say that there has been a lot of tequila.
The past couple of months have definitely been very trying. Those who have read my previous blog entry know that I faced some pretty impossible scenario regarding my visa to stay in the U.S. to continue my medical training. But after obstinately knocking on every door I could think of, both literally and figuratively, including that of the Prime Minister of Health of Quebec, I was granted an extension on my visa, a lucky exception, allowing me to stay in the U.S. and start my fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. It was a much hoped-for and prayed-for triumph, followed by a summer not without its challenges.
It is hard to believe that I started writing this blog as I entered medical school, and this summer marked the end of my training as an internal medicine resident. At the end of residency, one can choose to practice independently as an attending physician, or continue further training in a sub-specialty in a fellowship. I signed up for another three years of training to be a lung and critical care specialists. Call me nuts. But this means that in three years, I will work with patients afflicted with various pulmonary issues, as well as manage some of the sickest people in the Intensive Care Unit.
July is always a chaotic month for doctors. An old batch of trainees leave, and a new batch of wide-eyed incomers flood in. Add into the equation apartment hunting, car hunting, money scrambling, and oh, how can I forget, studying for one of the biggest exams of my life, the American Board of Internal Medicine, or the ABIM. Everything was on a tight and carefully thought-out schedule, all the while living out of cardboard boxes.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, doctors are humans, too. We have lives outside the hospital, we get sick, we get hungry and sleepy, we laugh, we cry, we make mistakes, we try to make lemonades when life gets sour, but sometimes we get overwhelmed by all the bitter lemons thrown at us.
Well, I eventually found an apartment and even managed to move by myself, hopping over fences while carrying heavy boxes. I moved some money around (euphemism for ‘I borrowed’) and got a car so I can drive between the three different hospitals where I will be working.
Then I found that that I had failed the ABIM on my first try. Never having failed an exam in my life, it was to my surprise that I did not die from failing one exam. I learned that a bad test score does not equate a failed career and that there are always second chances. So here I am, ready for the challenges and fun that the next three years will offer. Let me dust off that nasty feces that was thrown at me, and cheers!
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