Post Residency Bucket List
Originally published at Perches in the Soul. You can comment here or there.
Well the ICU is mostly what I expected. I think my biggest problem in medicine is I am just over doing things I do not find super educational (there is learning to be had in the ICU but its hard to do when your role is to do paperwork and field pages for flush orders) and that resemble slave labor (I barely touched actual children…I wrote orders all night long…you could train a computer to do my job)…. Ready to be a human being again.
While becoming a doctor has been the fulfillment of a dream. Its not the only dream I have. And in 13 months for better or for worse. I will be done with my required education related to that dream. Thank GOD.
What I want to do in terms of earning money to eat and maintain health insurance in 14 months is unclear exactly. And honestly I have gotten to the point I just don’t care (I mean do obviously I have sent out countless global health applications and tried relentlessly to create my own academic peds/global health fellowship but in the end as long as I get to take care of kids for some percentage of my day to day life, I don’t care the details much anymore).
What I really want to talk about is everything else I am going to do….
I have the following list thus far:
~Sleeping on a regular basis like every night… or at least at some point during the 24 hour period. Beyond being overseas (which is different), I am going to do my utmost to never work in house 24 hour+ call again.
~Finding a church/community that will not stone me for being a pacifist, a children’s/minority/disability rights activist, for thinking women have a role in church beyond raising babies BUT still believe in Jesus….
~On a related note, becoming a part of/forming/etc a Christian woman’s ministry where talk about something other than getting married and raising babies (both of which I would like to do but that I think are not actually my reason for existence (which is of course, glorifying God)).
~I would like to live in intentional community FOR REAL. Not just sort of halfheartedly
~Going back to Romania, find Aurel, Christine and Rapheal. And even if it requires 12 hours on a train, go see Laura’s Grave. Pray there and thank her for the vision she gave me in our short time together. Tell her I became a physician and that I carry her with me every time I speak for our people.
~Going back to East Africa and I would like to take my family with me.
~Live Abroad for at least 6 months but up to forever subject to God, my cartilage and all these other things.
~Writing THE BOOK that I have been talking about for 10 years even if it means I have to tell the truth about how bad medical school was at times
~Spending at least an entire week in the Outer Banks at my Grandfather’s where I eat fresh sea food every night, go sailing with my Granddaddy, losing myself in the Elizabethen Gardens and then waking up and doing it all over again.
~Spending a week with my Paternal Grandparents either on a road trip (they love to drive across country) or at their home. Learn to cook from my Grandmama (again!) and talk theology and writing with my Grandpapa.
~Spend some time with parents. Going on a Father/Daughter trip with my Dad that has NOTHING to do with trying to become a disabled doctor/pioneer/take some nasty exam. Hang out with my Mom, listen to her and not spending the entirely of time together with me venting about how much my blank rotation the previous month was the worst thing that ever happened…./her caring for me after some life altering, horribly stressful (for all involved you imagine watching your first born go under anesthesia 25 times+ ) and painful medical procedure.
~Go back to AAMC with protest signs/hunger strike if necessary and say they need to get over their able-ish and put a disabled physician on the committee for disability (GOD FORBID we actually have representation) and be a some what gracious but fierce activist with impeccable credentials (you can’t argue that I am just a med student any more, I will be a board certified pediatrician from of the top programs in the world). (this may or may not be related to the BOOK project)
~GO on a trip with just Emily and Victoria. Even if its just to a Holiday Inn in Vinton (which is like 10 minutes from our parents’ home)
~Go on a medical mission trip with Jessica
~Go visit my friends in Oregon
~See the Grand Canyon (actually going next month a year early)
~Really learn how to cook rather than occasionally dabbling
~Go on a silent prayer retreat
~Write some travel writing type essasys
~Go to Ireland
~Get the Sacred Tuesday Group back together for a crazy retreat/reunion/celebration somewhere (ANYWHERE)
~Help write some transition related stuff for kids with skeletal dysplasia (ok so nearly work related…but I have come to the stunning conclusion I might be the only human being currently alive who actually can/wants to do this)
~Read SMART books that are not about medicine
~Relearn all the theology/religion major stuff that I have suppressed in order to make room for the Krebs Cycle and organic chemistry (worthless)
~Need some sort of theater in my life again beyond the annual Long Family insanity known as MY MOM’S CHILDREN THEATER PLAY WEEKEND
~Figure out my opinion about about the laundry issues of social/theological issues that have come up in the last 7 years that I have not had time to research or pray about fully.
~Successfully plan and care for a garden without having either things die due to neglect or never getting it in all the way due to time constraints
~Go to the San Diego Zoo
~Read all the books on my list (really long)
~Learn to play an instrument (even if Emily says there is no hope for my deaf little ears)
~Buy a hammock, lay in it.
~Go through the phone book of where-ever I am living particularly if its a large city and eat all the different ethnic food restaurants from Albanian to Zambian.
~Make a recipe book of all my favorite Romanian/Russian/British/Scottish/Chinese/Kenyan/etc dishes that I have accumulated over the years from all my travels
~Take a photography class or at least dabble more officially
Longer term goals:
~Get married
~If that doesn’t work out, adopt anyway
~Scrapbook/Journal/DO better keeping up documenting
that’s it for now but this list will be growing over the next 13 months. Stay tuned.