Not enough

When my 4 months as a Gastro SHO was up on Tuesday, I had been building up the sadness within for a good week before. In fact, I had not anticipated enjoying Gastro this much when I first started - read: the days when my ward rounds ended at 3.30 pm, Upper GI bleeders dumped their systolic BP every 6 pm and I was sure that the bosses thought I was massive idiot with my obsolete medical knowledge coming from Orthopaedics. 

It was a very eventful ending to my last day on Gastro, in the wrong way. At 3.50 pm I opened up Patient A's chest X Ray, annoyed that it had taken them almost 4 hours from the moment I requested the CXR for it to finally be done. It was the most impressive CXR I had ever seen, think massive pneumoperitoneum with the diaphragm pushed wayyyy up. I ran over to the Oncology ward to make sure the patient had not died, and was duly impressed when I was told he was out sitting in the sun - that he had not managed to die since 24 hours ago of being admitted with these symptoms. The Consultant buried his face into his hands, the registrar who was in endoscopy rushed up 20 minutes later saying that she had just seen the X Ray....and the day ended with the patient insisting that he could still fight for his life....he had this much strong willpower inside him. No amount of 'You are going to die and you are not fit for an operation' would enter his mind. This was truly denial - the first phase of receiving bad news. 

And then my registrar gave me the cutest chocolate bunny I had ever seen and said she had had the easiest rotation this time around because I was on the wards and that I would be amazing at what I do, even if I ended up being a Cardiologist (which she proceeded to mutter under her breath - was really boring). I swear at that moment, if I had not wanted to be  a Cardiologist this much, I would have buckled and sworn that Gastro was totally my thing. 

But seriously, amidst all the chaos of the ginormous medical ward that I was based on, the crazy days of Gastro inheriting almost every single Gastro AND general medical patient in the hospital, and my 8 pm finishes with no registrar, no other juniors and no Consultant, I had come to love this job more than ever. So much so that I had only ever felt this sad once: the day I left my job as a Cardio FY1 last year.

These days, however, it is not enough to just be passionate and profess how much you love a specialty anymore. The days over the last two weeks when I have been slaving over firstly day on calls and then night on calls, when I stole every minute in between clerking patients to do two or three questions, or when I forced myself to stay up and do a paper even after the most horrible night, or when you power through 13 patients in one night on a crazy medical take and want to die from exhaustion, it isn't so easy to love this job when I am not a genius who aces the MRCP exam without having to crack my brain over all this excessive information.

Having been through med school and being a doctor humbles me time and time again and makes me recognise my own limitations - that I am far from clever and I am mediocre. I work hard and I am willing to pour all my enthusiasm into Cardiology but sometimes I am truly doubtful that this is all it takes to get me there.

If it's so hard for me to even pay attention and juggle studying + working to pass these memberships exams, I can't imagine the state I will be in for PACES, or when those specialty exams loom in the near future.

*headdesk*

Come on, you can do this. You can conquer this Part 2. A few more days of endless mugging and suffering and it will be all worth it.

VAMOS SHING!