I’ve been on what seems like such a long extended vacation from medical school since studying isn’t the same as being on rotations. Before that it was all the stuff with my Dad. I won’t even be back on rotations until Oct. 6. Its kind of weird… although I hate wearing the short white coat (it is hot and heavy- mainly due to all the books and crap I have in my pockets, a true sign of a medical student!) I do miss it – having the answers, helping patients, having to think on my feet, the constant activity… 
When I was with my Dad it was still kind of like being in medicine, especially since I would monitor how he was doing and report to the doctors who came in during the day and I did make a couple of suggestions to his care to make him a little bit more comfortable. But it was still very different from being the student doctor obviously.
I know that when I go back to rotations on Oct 6 I will be a profoundly different person than the girl who left rotations to go be with her father who was going to the ER for vague abdominal pain. I’m not sure how exactly it how I am different though. I know many people expressed to me that I would be a more compassionate physician for having gone through this. As I sat with my Dad he told me how he didn’t like how one doctor did this, or another did that and that he was happy that he was able to teach me to be a better physician. So I want all of this to have meaning, to not have been this terribly devastating storm that wrecked my life and my mother’s life and took my father away – but I’m not how to translate it all into me being a better physician. It’s not like I need to know that answer now, and it will probably not be obvious to me for years to come. It’s just this need to take what happened and make it into this wonderful positive thing because it is just so painful to have lost my Dad. :(
September 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I think that it’s not something you can see…it’ll happen in the little things you do, in how you relate to patients, in how you can help another cope with a not so good diagnosis.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
You may indeed not see ‘instantaneous translations’ into your medical life of all you have learned, experienced, and felt through this ordeal. Your pain and sense of loss have heal first. However all of this pain will make you such a caring physician who is well aware that the patient is not just the object of medical attention. Seeing you explain medical issues to your father, I think you do not realize how very professional yet caring you already are. You have an innate ability to do this that no classroom nor rotation can teach. You are extremely sensitive to people’s feelings. I am sure not many medical students would have responded the way you did. It is a very rough journey back to rotations knowing your father is not going to be there. Be patient, know you have the inner strength to do this. And, above all, know you are so much closer (not just to graduation) than you realize.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
(((hugs)))
September 11th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Such major events change who we are from the inside rather than the outside. Everytime you care for a patient now you will have a littl ebit of your dad with you. A little bit of what he taught you and what you learned from him. Your strength through it all has been truly amazing.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
You know, it took me a long time to be able to see, to use what I lived through and learned about when I lost Katie. Now I have found ways to give that horrible time meaning.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I think Michelle is right… you have been very strong through it all and I think that the whole experience has changed you and will change the way you see and deal with patients…