let's not try to figure out everything at once

Everyone kept telling me that fourth year of medical school is the time when you unwind and do all the things you've been putting off for the rest of your medical training. Thing is, I wound up keeping myself far more occupied than usual this year. Between clinical rotations that helped clarify my future, applying for and interviewing at residency programs, embarking on and maintaining a (gulp, ick) relationship, q5 baking, and keeping up with the rantings of Charlie Sheen, I feel like I have been so busy this year that this weekend was one of the first times I actually have had a moment to contemplate what soon lies ahead.

One more week, and that's it. No more clinical rotations. Officially, I'm done.

In two weeks, I find out where I'll be spending the next three years.

And until this past week, I have been industriously avoiding all of my natural tendencies towards churning about all of this. I can see how actually it is quite momentous, but it is as if my brain just knows it is better to watch the chips fall rather than plan out various scenarios and contingency plans.

I could be living an entirely different life in just a month.

But I guess, when I think about it, when I have the time and give myself the allowance as I do tonight, medical school did not change the things about me that I did not want to sacrifice. Even though I was not as wide-eyed and pliable as my classmates, still, these years have been formative. Yet I still feel very much me, if that makes any sense, and that seems to be of comfort when I think of what the future might hold.

And while I could tell you some stories about my rotation in the ED that took a few bites out of my idealism, I still enjoy patient care, in ways that I will not cheapen by nattering on about. I am not a physician yet, not even close. And even though I will have a medical degree in a few months, it will still be a while before I become anywhere near a competent physician. But I am starting to get an idea of the sort of physician I want to be. So I have not really been thinking about any further details, and maybe, for once, that is just fine by me.