The Fade
I’m really enjoying a new medical school blogger, maybe because he’s writing what I’m scared to write, writing what I sometimes feel. And I’m ashamed, frustrated, and sad to say it, but I’m experiencing The Fade, as he calls it, too:
Yet, somehow, in a matter of months, I had begun fading from that which I had been into what I had now become, proficient in the mechanical daily tasks of being a physician (or at least a physician’s scut monkey) but having completely lost sight of the simple human picture that I had once firmly understood and promised to uphold in spite of the sheer nonsense and stupidity inherent in the first two years of medical school.
Only six months into my third year of medical school, my first sixth months as a semi-functional physician, and I had already started veering down that path of apathy, that fade into indifference that I see so many of my superiors and peers having already disappeared into. I could no longer feel the coldness of my surroundings, as I was now humbled by a frigid sense of shame I had never before felt and never wanted to feel again.
Racing back now, eager to get out of the cold and into the comfort of my bed to get my five hours of sleep, I realized that I was lucky this time, that I had someone call me out for my behavior (even if it was not done consciously), and that I was wise enough to know I was not wise enough to know better.
Suggestions are entirely welcome.
Having gotten thru the process recently (now in 3rd yr of practice – how did that happen?), “the fade” happens especially in the middle of 3rd yr. This is a totally new learning style (we all became experts of lectures and books and multiple choice tests) and there’s no way anyone is truely prepared for trying to learn and function without sleep, learning that those classes we struggled to memorize are only kinda relevent and the only thing that matters is anticipating whatever your senior or attending pimps you on. It was totally suprising to the people scheduling rotations that at least 10 of us had some suicidal thoughts, especially in surgery rotation (severe lack of sleep!)
Spring will come. Light and humor will return. Get outside, take up some form of excercise, or singing, or something away from rotations. Anybody suggests a potluck, get something from the store and go. Most of the time, if the intern or senior says the student can go – for God’s sake, GET OUTTA THERE! (as an attending and as a senior resident, sometimes I forgot the student was around!) As silly as it sounds, “this, too, shall pass.” Your true nature will not be destroyed, just masked for a while.
Peace, and remember to breathe! Shel