Personal anecdote

Forty four good years, with more to come.  I’ll honor it with the words we started with…

Today on the trip from Auburn (Maine) to Montpelier (Vermont) my wife spotted the Snowy Owl she had heard was hanging out near the Elk Farm just north of Snow Falls. 

I met Wes when were both counsellors at the same summer camp in Rhinebeck, NY. I had just graduated from high school and he was a graduate student, a gifted musician, and willing to help me find my way through a troublesome summer.

It was the summer before my last year of medical school and I was traveling around the US for family practice residency interviews. My wife and I were staying with some of her college friends while I looked at a program in Denver.

Three years and ~ 250 posts ago I started doing this, wondering if I would be able to find things to write about. As it turns out, that was the wrong question. A better question would have been, would I care enough to keep writing. So far, the answer is a resounding yes. My plan for the next year is to keep questioning so I can keep learning and growing. The future has a way of sneaking up on us like a windshield on a bug.

I hope you all have a wonder-full New Year, and that all your answers lead to better questions.

Peter

I miss the relative simplicity and patient-centeredness that characterized the early years of my medical career.

Dear Universe.

Happy Thanksgiving.  I am truly thankful, and here is a partial list of my reasons:

1. I won the lottery. No, not the one at the corner store. I mean being born at this time in history in the US and to parents who cared deeply about their children and the future and had the wherewithal to give me a good start.

2. My health. As a physician for the last 35 years, I am all too well aware of how tragic and undeserved ill-health can be. 

I made an extra trip to the nursing home to visit him on his hundredth birthday. 

Playing with my three year old granddaughter is teaching me to be mindful of whose world I am in, and to behave accordingly. 

In her world, she is the native and I am a tourist. The rules and customs are hers. Things go well when I can relax and let the native guide me. My attempts to impose customs or rules from my world on her world fail spectacularly. As they should.

Some of the things we learn during our medical training are startlingly obvious, but only after we have learned them.