Meh

If you want sunshine and roses (you know who you are anon troll), you should skip this post.

I ran into the classmate who did heme-onc at Pennsy after I did last night, and I asked her how she liked it. She emoted about how great it was, and how awesome the attendings were. It made me feel..... I don't know. Like there was something wrong with me.

I've had two electives in a row now that have left me with this meh feeling. I hated hated hated(!) both of them for the first two weeks, but gradually both got better over time. Enough so then I felt guilty about hating them initially, but not so much that I'm like "WOOHOO!! So totally gonna go into that!"

Next I do neurology. Neurology went well for me last year, and I don't really know why. I find it interesting intellectually, though I'm a little worried that it will be plagued with the same problems that the oncs have had: a lot of outpatient shadowing, and a painfully slow pace. And what if this year I get a resident who is NOT as big a fan of mine as the one I had last year? What if they decide I'm not so great afterall?

But mostly: What if I feel just as meh about this elective as I've felt about my last two?

See the thing is, I'm kind of expecting it. I got pretty screwed in the elective lottery. I had wanted to do anesthesia and em, and got exactly ZERO of that. And the waiting lists were 4 people deep. There was no way it was going to work out for me this spring.

I had wanted to try out something procedure-y and critical-care-y before I committed to a PhD on the subject, and now I'm going to have to do this blind. I *think* I will like it. But who really knows!

So, after getting the proverbial dick in the a** in the elective lottery, I went around trying to find electives that would be fun. I thought, "Maybe this is really an opportunity in disguise!" I got lured into heme onc by the MD PhD director who thinks that all MD-PhDs should do medicine. I picked Rad Onc because lots of PhDs do it, and it has the reputation of having great research.

Plus side: At least I don't have to worry about the fact that THE heme-onc Epi person doesn't return emails and has the reputation for being a not-so-great mentor. Or so I've heard.

And both electives were disappointing. And not fun, at least not until the last week. And to add insult to injury, I was criticized in my heme-onc eval for not being "soft" enough in my patient interactions. Since he never saw me interact with a patient during a time that I wasn't shadowing, I have no idea what he's referring to. The only thing I can think of is that at one point during the month, he made fun of the fact that I shake the hands of all of my patients. It smacked of interactions I've had in the past where I've been told by alleged friends that I'd be a bad mother, even though they've never seen me around kids.

So next I have neurology. I did actually choose to do this one, so maybe it will be different. I hope I like it, but I'm afraid it's just going to be another let down. It's just another resident I'll have to convince I'm not an idiot. Another month of stressful interactions. Another month where I don't feel like I fit and have to pretend I'm enjoying myself when I'm not. I'm so tired of that. Tired of having to have my guard up all of the time. What if I get another crappy boss who makes working for him/her painful? What if I get another eval essentially criticizing my personality?

I can't figure out what I like and don't like this way. It's never going to work. And it's too stressful.

I thought 4th year was supposed to be "The Promised Land," and it's turning out to be shadowing hell. I think I actually preferred my core clerkships. At least there you had a role, even though it was a s***ty one. And there was no pressure to pick what you were going to do for the rest of your life. Here the assumption is that you're doing these electives because you think you'll go into them. And then I hate them.

All of them.

What if I never have an elective that doesn't make me feel this way? I'm going to end up picking a specialty because I have to pick *something* and I will hate it. And this whole program will have been a colossal waste of my time.