Posted Oct. 2

It's hard not to think about family when you are a family physician. Having been on OB and then on pediatrics, I see a lot of families: newborns wiggling themselves out to a world of loving family members, children accompanied by their protective siblings, new fathers hesitantly pacing the corridors for the "It's time" look, and mothers who hold their breath as you examine their sick babies. I like observing the family dynamics just as much as I like to interact with my patient - the focal point of my 15 minutes in the room.  Some of my most memorable experiences are when I get to witness another family member console, encourage, advise and entertain the patient they've brought me to see.  For them, it's an intimate moment. For me, it's a privilege.

As interns, we get together once a week to check in with each other, to share these intimate moments that have made a significant impression on us. Sometimes the experience of being a young doctor is crushing and overwhelming, sometimes it is glorious, other times it is overshadowed by the events of our own personal lives. Every Thursday, after each of us has had our turn to check in, I always leave the hour feeling awed - humbly awed. These feelings are so raw and yet my fellow residents have somehow individually processed it enough to be coherent and powerful for the rest for us. There is no reason why this opportunity would be unique to doctoring. I think anyone - artist, writers, performers, teachers, social workers - anyone invested in interpreting the human experience gets this connection as well.

When you are observing families, it's hard not to also step back and look at your own family life. How are your personal connections working out? Is there someone, or something, that you take care of at home? Or is there someone who takes care of you?  Residents have told me - and I can attest to the same - many days you come home and you just want to collapse into a funky daze. After a long day of taking care of others, you're simply wiped out. But when the clouds clear, there are plants that need watering, meals to prepare, laundry to be folded and our own health to manage. 

I've thought about starting a family. People in medicine say there is never a good time to start having children because every stage of the career has its own trials and tribulations. As residents, most of us have put our personal plans on hold, waiting and exhaling, watching our patients' lives progress through stages of their own family life, while our own lives patiently wait at the bus stop for the two o'clock bus that never arrives. After a 30-hour call, nothing could posses me to have kids, not even the thought of seeing my favorite weekday baby, my fellow intern's seven-month-old who comes to join our didactics every Thursday. 

For the time being, I have a husband at home whom I can sit side by side with at that bus stop. He is wonderfully silly and charms my meandering thoughts away from medicine and back towards the present moment: my family of two.