Being a resident around the holidays is tough. As I drove to work on Thanksgiving Day to start my night-call shift at noon, I dreaded going to work. The extra-long hours required on the general medicine service during the previous month had worn me down. I felt a twinge of resentment about having to be at the hospital while my family, hundreds of miles away, gathered around a table together, and while my in-town friends were tucking into feasts that they had prepared.
Once at the hospital, I immediately got caught up in the flurry of admitting new patients and discharging others who were eager to get home to their gatherings. The hospital had prepared a turkey dinner for the employees that day. When I finally had a moment to sit down and eat, I abandoned the plate thirty seconds later to answer a code blue on the solid tumor floor. After reviving the patient, we transferred her to the MICU.
By midnight, I was determined to eat. I retrieved another plate of food, and as I sat down, reality check #212 of my residency started settling in. I had been feeling crummy about coming in for my shift on the holiday, and yet I was surrounded by patients who didn’t want to be in the hospital either, and who would be there long after my shift was over. A feeling of thankfulness for my health, the people who have cared for me, and for all the opportunities I've been given overwhelmed me, sweeping away my earlier feelings of resentment. As Willie Nelson says: “When I started counting my blessings my whole life turned around.”
The next day, friends piled enough leftovers in my freezer to last me for months. It wasn’t a Thanksgiving dinner around a table with my family, but it felt like a blessing just the same.