Work and Life

On Writing: Marking the Anniversary of a Blog

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“I admire anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.” – E. B. White

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” – Mark Twain

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway

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Dr. Kathy Hughes, Behind the Mask

This is the anniversary of my very first blog post, that day a year ago when I summoned up my courage, took a deep breath and clicked on the “publish” button that first time. I crossed a threshold of sorts in that moment, the start of my transformation into a writer.

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I Look Like a Surgeon, and #ILookLikeASurgeon

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“A good surgeon has the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion, and the hand of a woman…”– 15th Century English Proverb

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#ILookLikeASurgeon, operating

#ILookLikeASurgeon, a new hashtag on Twitter and the movement it has inspired, has resonated deeply with me.

I look like a Surgeon. There is so much more behind this seemingly simple statement of fact. I am not just stating that I have excelled and I have achieved and I am accomplished by being a surgeon. In saying I look like a surgeon, I am saying that it is normal for me to be a surgeon; that it is normal for me to be seen as a surgeon; that it is normal for me to command the respect and authority of a surgeon; and ultimately, that it is normal for others who look like me to aspire to be surgeons.

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Snow Day

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“When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I’ll know I’m growing old.” – Lady Bird Johnson

“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” – e. e. cummings

“Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm.” – Bob Dylan

Snowy Day, Winter 2014

Snowy Day, Winter 2014

 I am not that different now than I was as a kid, with the prospect of a snow storm looming in the future. As the storm approaches and the forecast comes in to focus, I feel the spark of excitement building in my core. I can’t help but feel this quickening, the magnitude paralleling the magnitude of the anticipated storm.

Here in New England, we are bracing for a storm of “historic magnitude”, “Top 5” , whatever that means. A nor’easter predicted to blow in and lay down between 2 and 3 feet of snow where I am. What a thrill!

Things are different now, of course, than in childhood. Instead of the delicious prospect of a bonus day off from school, spent “helping” dig out, playing in snow, and getting Mom or Dad to make up some hot chocolate or a warm nourishing comfort-food meal, more practical preparations and planning take precedence.

The planning is ever present. As a doctor, and especially an on-call general surgeon, it is critical that I be able to get to the hospital regardless of the weather. Continue reading →

Happy New Year! The Pause To Reflect

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end..” – Closing Time, Semisonic

Sunset, December 2014, Falmouth, MA looking towards Martha’s Vineyard

We come end of 2014, and to New Years’s Eve, the annual celebration of flipping the page to the next calendar year. This celebration has always seemed a little forced, a little arbitrary (especially as there are other calendars out there celebrating other new years). My brother, back when he was bartending his way through school, used to refer to it as one of the amateur nights. I enjoyed the parties, especially when I was younger and it was a chance for the old gang to reunite over the winter break.  As I have gotten older and friends have dispersed along their lives’ paths, I have preferred a quieter evening among family or close friends, if I am not working (and often I am). Some years I haven’t made it to midnight.

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day cap off the holiday season, and the completion of the calendar year. The last blast as we head in to the rest of a long winter, which has barely gotten under way, just past the solstice. It is a busy, hectic whirlwind time of year, full of lights and celebrations and family and friends and stress. Good stress and bad stress, but stresses all the same. It is also a time to reflect, take inventory. I think it is a good time to pause, and be still. Even if it is a brief island of peace in the sea of frenetic buzz and hubbub all around.

So as this holiday season and the year draw to a close, I am taking a moment of quiet, a deep breath, a pause, to be still. I invite you to do the same.

I reflect on this year as it comes to a close, and acknowledge the blessings and the people around me, who support me with their love, their affection, their friendship, their guidance. I can look back on the year just ending, its triumphs, its challenges, even its failures, with gratitude for the lessons learned from them all. Looking forward with hope and optimism, waiting to see what unfolds as I move into the new year. I know there are more challenges awaiting me; I must have faith that there will be successes, too, keeping eyes and heart and mind all open so that I recognize those opportunities as they present themselves.

Thank you for joining me on this journey Behind the Mask, as we continue forward together. Wishing health and happiness to all in the New Year!

Working Christmas: On ‘Being Essential’, Together

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Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? – Band Aid

 

Snowy Wreath

Snowy Wreath

This is for all of the doctors and nurses. For all of the police and firefighters, EMTs and paramedics. P.A.s and N.P.s, techs and aides. You know what I’m talking about.

We are the “essential personnel”, the ones whose work includes nights and weekends and holidays. The ones who go out in the storms, even when everyone else stays home. “Stay off of the streets, except for essential personnel.” Schools close, businesses and banks and government close. Hell, even Dunkin’ Donuts and 7-Eleven close. But no closures or cancellations for “essential personnel.”

We essential types work lots of holidays. Correction, all holidays. Our friends and families miss us, learning over time to make the adjustments and accommodations for the holiday schedules. We hope they understand. If we are all very lucky, we can sneak in an early or late celebration. We sometimes miss it all completely. I think our families get a raw deal out of this; they don’t have the work responsibility to justify the interruptions and cancellations. They sacrifice, too, maybe more.

When Christmas and the holiday season come to the hospital, the atmosphere is festive. Continue reading →

The Fragile Surgeon: A Fear for the Heart of the Profession

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“You are human and fallible.” -Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“Alas, the frailty is to blame, not me – for such as we are made of, such we be…” -William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Sha-doo-bee, Shattered…” -Mick Jagger, “Shattered”, The Rolling Stones, Some Girls (1978)

"Heirloom", deconstructed/cut china - Elizabeth Alexander, artist

“Heirloom”, cut china,                artist, Elizabeth Alexander

It seems incongruent, an oxymoron, even slightly disloyal, to refer to surgeons as fragile. Preposterous.

The Image of the Surgeon is synonymous with strength. Surgeons are stereotypically charismatic, commanding, confident, even arrogant. Strong minds, strong bodies, strong wills. Leaders, especially in the operating room; they even act that way in other healthcare teams and committees, even if it is not their official role. Surgeons endure long hours, grueling surgeries, all in addition to full office and clinic loads, and inpatient hospital census numbers on par with their non-surgical colleagues. It is intellectually, physically, and emotionally challenging work. Surgeons seem to relish it, thrive on it.

This is exactly why surgeons are so fragile. All of them.

I had an epiphany at the end my 4th year of medical school, when we were in small group seminars dealing with aspects of life beyond graduation. I don’t even recall what that session was about. But I remember clearly that it struck me quite suddenly exactly how physical my chosen field of surgery really was. That, unlike my friends and classmates who were heading towards other fields, my ability to do my job as a surgeon was going to depend not just on my will and intellect, but on sheer physicality and functioning senses.

A surgeon has to be able to stand at the operating table; both hands and arms need to function. Senses have to work — vision, hearing, speech, touch. Unfortunately, smell too. (I wish I had known about smell, although it probably would not have deterred me, just prepared me.) I realized it is a very, very physical job. Losing the function of any one sense or limb could alter the ability to operate, the ability to be a surgeon. Internists can still practice from wheelchairs or with accommodation for myriad physical or sensory impairments. Other specialties that perform procedures retain their full professional identity and ability to continue in those fields, even with limited ability or inability to perform.

But, what is a surgeon who doesn’t operate? Continue reading →