My Blog

This blog started for me to write down some of the things that I was learning in medical school, to share my thoughts and experiences with others, and with myself.  Anything funny, I found joy in writing down and sharing with others, laughing again to myself as I relived it by writing.  Anything sad, I found some peace and closure in finishing my essay, clicking "publish post."  And over the years I was thrilled by the feedback- family members laughing, medical students I didn't even know writing me and saying that my writing was exactly what they felt but couldn't express.  They showed it to their spouses to help them understand.  Patients- not mine, but some searching on their internet for answers- found my writing and valued the glimpse it allowed them into a young doctor's thinking.

I kept it public for all these reasons- so it could be shared freely between students, so people without email addresses to log in could still see it, and so it could find anyone that might enjoy it.  Knowing this, I was very careful to keep anonymity, to abide by patient privacy laws and confidentiality.  But, despite this, my program director would like me to take it down, despite enjoying my "creative flair."

Who told you I had this?  And how long have you been reading it?  Shit.

But, he is as free to read it as anyone else.  I had kept it that way for all the reasons I listed above, and because of this, he was able to read thoughts that I wouldn't have otherwise shared with him.

I'm disappointed to move this to a private site.  My writing has become such an important part of my life.  I write the entries in my head, in quiet moments, when I exercise or drive, or just walk and think about what I can say to make my life make sense to others, and to myself.  They never take me long to write- maybe ten minutes, limited only by the speed of typing.  And there are always others, ones that I never write down.

I loved sharing this publicly.  It has helped me tremendously not only to verbalize my own experiences, but to hear from others that my stories mirrored theirs, or that they helped someone understand their own life a little better or that people just enjoyed them, and were laughing somewhere in front of their computers.  I will continue to write, and post under a private site, but only for those not connected with my work or medicine.

It is my hope someday to put these into a book, and to finally have it "out there" for others to enjoy and relate to.  I dream of it reaching medical students that don't know me, but feel like they do after reading my book, because my stories are the same as theirs.  I hope patients can read it and know that doctors care about them, and went through a lot to be in a position to help them.  And as always, my grandmother will read these, as she does now, and enthusiastically share them with her friends and nag me to put up another post soon.