Two months in review (9-10/2015)

In the past two months, I've been on Labor and Delivery, and on the clinic service. During this time, I clocked my personal best and worst weeks in terms of duty hours. I logged 92 hours on week on L&D (when I worked two weekends on either side of a busy week), and I logged 30 hours on a (very average) clinic week.

I got a lot done during that month of 30 hour work weeks: doctor visits, dental appointments, making curtains, a car wash, moving forward on research projects (18 patients recruited for my survey study, phone calls towards one patent, drawings for a manufacturer on another, and signing on to another device study at my hospital), and moving forward on fun projects (contacted an illustrator on two children's books [was turned down but hey at least I contacted someone], and went live for beta testing on another [sorry I can't link or it'd compromise anonymity]). I also furthered some of the NFP projects, completing fundraising on a video project for NFP-only interviewees (now that's gonna compromise anonymity when the video comes out...so I'll probably have to delete that later), completing a final version of new-evangelization-style NFP handouts for patients in our metroplex (and getting half of the funds for that!), and half-finalizing the manuscript of the pocket-Napro book that myself and another NFP-only resident are working on.

I have learned to do a discharge summary in ten minutes. I have learned to do dishes once every two weeks without inviting every bug in the metroplex. I have started walking to work more (because I hate scraping cars).

I'm still chronically exhausted. A major spiritual battle right now is how to deal with fatigue; it's actually the core battle of my life. At the same time, I am tempted to think I do not pray, sacrifice, or love God enough. But the reality is, that my prayer (outside the starvation rations of just MP, EP, and meditation) is the prayer on the Cross: complete obedience and self abnegation. And my penance is the penance of Christ's ministry: who needs flagellation when all personal time is lost in a 90 hour work week?

P.S. There are two additions that need to be made to OB/GYN Ethics 101: methotrexate for ectopics, and emergency contraception. I'm also working on elevator speeches and details on the post-fertilization effects of IUDs. Thank you for being patient! The next five months will be very, very hard for me and I have posts scheduled through that time, but new material will be slow to come out.