Sometimes This Stuff Gets Emotional

You know that feeling when you are really happy about something, and you feel like you are completely unable to hold it in? The kind of feeling where you let out a little scream and shake? It is that feeling you get in high school when the girl or boy you really like asks you out, or when you get a letter in the mail that you were accepted to that college that you really wanted to go to. You feel like everything in life is going the way you want it to. Unfortunately, I can not remember the last time I had that feeling. Residency will do that to you. When I wake up on a work day (the large majority of my days), I am usually overcome with a feeling of dread as I realize what I have facing me that day...overbooked clinics, surgical cases with high strung attendings, incredibly sick inpatients, rude hospital staff, and co-residents that are just as stressed out and cranky as you are. Most of the inappropriate comments come from your attendings, and you eventually learn to let them role off your shoulder. A battle is just not worth it. You want to get through these next couple of years as smoothly as possible, and move on with your life. Unfortunately, there are those occasional moments where an inappropriate comment comes from your co-resident...you are not exactly hanging out with them on weekends, but you expect a little more from the people that are floating in the same boat as you.

Recently my co-resident...one I am pretty friendly with...poked himself with a suture needle in the operating room. It turned out that the patient was HIV +, and my co-resident needed to go on anti-viral medication for 2 months. After the surgery, he commented that when he is finished with residency, he will refuse to ever perform surgery on a gay male patient. He does not know that I am gay, but this should not matter. This was something I chose to keep to myself at work, and I guess I am glad I did! I did not realize how completely ignorant my co-residents could be! These are the people who are supposed to be objectively treating patients! These people are doctors, they are supposed to be intelligent! I lashed back with the statistics (one's he should have already learned in medical school)...worldwide, women accounted for 50% of all persons infected with the HIV virus. Even in the United States, gay men only make up 53% of those infected with the HIV virus. He shut his mouth, we moved on. I could deal with the surgeons in the OR joking that I am trying to touch their asses as I tie up their gowns, or the orthopedist's gay impression that he loves to perform...but complete ignorance was more than I was willing to handle. So, there was no little scream or a shake, but if felt pretty good to finally speak up. I think I am going to try it more often.