What’s Missing

I’ve figured it out. What’s missing from MIS and ACS and Transplant and what was present in Thoracic and to some extent, Nights. Independence.

I don’t mean just freedom to order whatever I want or make my own decisions and mistakes. That’s vital too but to a lesser extent. I mean the freedom to feel, to talk to patients, to sit and hear them, to listen to their lungs and their hearts and especially their hearts. To learn. To talk. To feel.

There was a chance to feel.

Now I spend every waking minute paging and consulting and updating the handoff and finding something else to do in a neurotic nonstop hypnotic state. And I feel nothing and sad.