Burnt out and sad
I don’t know if the general theme of my posts today has been getting through, but I’m tired. This rotation has been hard.
It started with my chief informing me the day before my rotation that they wouldn’t be there for the first two weeks due to medical leave and I would have to take over as chief in a short staffed team.
Then I stayed late every day trying to run the team well, and as a result never made it to the laparoscopic skills training lab to practice before my exam.
Then I think I may have failed my laparoscopic skills exam. Which is not in and above itself a huge deal, you just repeat it, but it looks bad. Apparently no one fails (except maybe me. I’m still waiting to find out, but I panicked, and it was BAD).
Then we had an unexpected death in my extended family that’s hit me really hard. Someone way too young died of complications of her diabetes. Next day, I had three separate consults for young people with horribly uncontrolled type 1 diabetes. The universe is cruel sometimes.
The day after the funeral I couldn’t sleep. I had a couple bad days in the OR.
Now I’ve gotten my first rotation evaluation that has been negative. It says I work hard, I have good clinical judgement, but my operative skills are below average. I’ve never been told that before- in fact, I’ve always been able to hold onto my evals saying I’ve got “good hands” and I’m above average in the OR.
And this is my last clinical rotation before I start a masters degree- which is good, because it means I get a change of pace- but also bad, because if I go out with a failed skills examination and an evaluation that says I’m bad in the OR, my program director is going to be seriously concerned about letting me take two years off of clinical duties to do a masters.
I don’t know guys. This job is tough.
