Day 286 Trouble in Paradise

I have thought about writing this for a long time. The reason I haven't is because I wanted to be positive as much as I can, but I realized that this experience would be incomplete, and I would be living a lie if everything I wrote always seemed positive. Although I talk about my program with a lot of positivity and joy. There are also un-pleasant moments and situations that arise occasionally, and I believe its just part of life and residency, and its something I'm having a hard time adjusting to. I recently had a meeting with the program director and one of her assistants to go over the yearbook which we were planning. (I had already made a video and placed it on youtube, but it was taking down because of the soundtrack.) As I sat their collecting my thoughts, one of the administrative directors sat down next to me and said "you know what has happened this year, has never happened before. This year all of you guys seem to really get a long. We have never had such a tight group here. It's really amazing" By this time the director was sitting next to me and was hearing the conversation. I turned to her and said "I know what you mean, we were even discussing this a few weeks ago, and we were saying that people should pay to be in our residency." They both laughed.

My friends -there's trouble in paradise. I guess it was naive of me to believe that this place is perfect, but then that would not be reality. People are people. They have emotions and they can be quite mean. They have their bad days and their good days. No one is morally perfect. For instance, I was kind of shocked when I first found out that one of the first years in the program tried to kick out one of my best friends whose a first year. She was covering for my friend one Sunday, and he had not given her a proper sign out (it might have been in-complete) and because of it she had a bad day and had to do a lot of "extra" work. Well, instead of talking it over amongst us, she went to the chief resident and had a 1 hour meeting about him and wanting to get him in trouble with the program director and hospital. The meeting was an hour because the chief was trying to convince her not to complain about my friend and not get him fired! Whats shocking about all this is that we are all first years and in the same group. We have all been through a lot. We should be working with each other instead of going up against each other. To top it all off, she even complained about me. She was complaining to the other residents that I'm late a lot of times. I couldn't believe she did not discuss this with me, but instead went to the other residents and was talking about it. I still talk to her, and I still get along with her. Many of the interns and seniors are careful when they spent time with her because they know that she is capable to complain to the highest office if something goes wrong. There are probably many small examples of situations that has developed in the past this year, but I don't think its relevant to describe them all. (I have written about a few of them and will post them.) Even today, I asked one of the seniors to help one of the interns on Sunday (because I 'm leaving for a wedding of one of my best friends in the program). The covering intern is pretty much covering all the floors 2 hours, and I spoke to the senior and asked them if it was ok to help him out so he will not get over whelmed 2 hours. I didn't think it was anything. And I have gotten along with her pretty good the entire year. But when I asked her, she put this face like "This damn interns. We are seniors and shouldn't be doing this." It really took me back. I felt very awkward. Its like if you have every felt like you are in the wrong place- like walking in to the ladies room by accident- you just put you head down try to apologize and walk away. Her entire demeanor changed. She seemed very upset. And if she tried to cover it up she really didn't do a good job. There are 2 seniors on this Sunday, and I got the same reaction from the other senior when I asked her too. She has this face like "these damn interns." But in all fairness, I can almost understand them. I'm not going to go into details, but the seniors before us were living a nightmare based on all the stories I heard. I heard people were very abrasive to one another. There was a lot of infighting. People wanted to leave the program. Senior residents were not helpful for the most part. It was a very cold place. (I'll post about it in the future) SO the seniors that we have now look at the environment and are in shocked of how much has changed. People are working better with each other. Helping each other out more. It feels like we are all a family. But like any family, none is perfect. We all have faults. There is trouble in paradise after all. On the other hand, a small part of me kind of hurts a bit. Hurts because of the realization that even in this place we cannot have complete happiness and harmony. We are all after all part of this world. We are in a hospital where people are sick and dying day in and day out. There are human beings in pain. There are people that suffer and are angry. We laugh but we also cry. We love but we also fight. We bless and we also hurt. Just a small part of me wanting to be part of something that was bigger than anything. Bigger than me and any place. I wanted to be part of a place untainted by the evilness of this world. I wanted to belong to a group of like minded individuals that are solly concerned about others and not themselves.

I was in a bus one day. And there was an individual that was handing out this small little papers that read "How to have eternal Life" She must have been a missionary and she was handing it out to everyone. As she went towards the back, she handed it to one guy who gave her back the paper and said "Eternal Life? No thanxs! I have enough problems as it is. I don't want to live with my problems for ever. I don't want to have bills the rest of my life. Theirs just to many problems in life to live with them for ever." The missionary looked at him and was confused. She told him "this is not to live on this earth for ever. This is to live in heaven for ever." The man smiled and said "ok." and took the paper. I Still love and care about the residents that I work with. We are like a big family with occasional problems. We have faults and we have to accept them. I pray to God that I can accept mines and other peoples.
GOd BLess

Dr.Mike