Beginnings

I've recently spent some time on the blogosphere looking at medical blogs.  Some of them I've found to be funny, others sad.  Some have been snide and others have been sensitive.  All of them have been insightful in their own way, though at times it's been the inadvertent insightfulness that comes by tactlessly relating a story that another person can connect to.  I've connected with many of those stories, and while reading them I realized I may have a few stories of my own that are worth telling.

I'm a senior-level resident anesthesiologist in a program in Texas.  I love my job and the diverse group of patients who entrust me with their lives.  I've often looked at my patients, asleep and intubated, and reflected on their utter helplessness.  That reflection has generated a profound sense of responsibility to do for my patients what they are powerless to do for themselves.  It's no mistake that the motto of the American Society of Anesthesiologists is "Vigilance."

My enthusiasm for my job and my patients, however, has been tempered to a degree by the utter inanity of many of the patients and situations that I must face.  It is very difficult to hold cynicism at bay while sucking beer out of yet another drunk driver's stomach in the wee hours of the morning.  But despite my moments of cynicism, I do not believe I'm a cynical person.  Snide?  Perhaps.  Wry?  Certainly.  But I still love what I do and the people I serve.

So it is that after much consideration I've decided to add my voice to the medical blogosphere.  My intent here is to tell my stories.  As a group, they are humorous, irritating, joyful, tragic, exciting, and mundane; but all share the commonality of being uniquely mine.  I just hope they're worth reading.