Checking in

I sometimes wonder if, in the short six months of working life, I have become jaded and less compassionate.

I hope I'm doing the right thing by my patients. I can feel myself slipping up in my patient etiquette, which I had previously so highly strove for. I hope I'm doing the right things for them. Am I easing their suffering to my best of my abilities? Does a lack of emotions and less shock at a patient's death mean something? Am I evading my duties by trying to pass up difficult conversations, or am I doing the "proper" thing by escalation?

Another soul gone. More souls suffering. I look at my patients and think about what mum and dad are debating outside and though I still feel it is at once selfish, it is also yet so unbelievably understandable that people would pray to leave the cycle of suffering and achieve another level of peace.

I, in turn, have lived an incredibly fortunate life. Compared to my new co-intern, in her own words, "little did I know that once speech would change my life forever." Compared to a family of similar origin to ours, instead in a different country, and their unhappiness with their world. So much happier am I in my own. So grateful, but so many times I slip up. Today, getting grumpy once more, when I should have been extremely thankful and grateful from the start.

I hope I've done right by my patients. I hope I've done right with my medical students. I can't protect them from these things, and more often these days I find myself more lacking in my introspective nature. I hope to check in more on my close ones and loved ones.

I shall make that my next goal.