Quite simply, I've been avoiding going back to The Hospital.

Around the time that interviews started this Fall, making the trip across the Bay became less and less frequent for me. Ironically (even hypocritically), my personal statement for medical school is about riding the shuttle to The Hospital.


Over the last three years, as my colleagues stopped volunteering for personal, work, or professional reasons, I always maintained that I would faithfully serve until I moved away for medical school. I sacrificed much to be at The Hospital as an undergrad at Berkeley. And even when I regularly showed up an hour late to Large Group, having not eaten dinner, exhausted and soaked from walking in the rain, I knew God's calling for me was to serve in this way. It has changed my life forever. And I loved it. I've probably logged over 1,000 hours volunteering, but I helped to implement the electronic tracking system some time during my second year, so I guess we'll never know. 


This past summer, the weariness started to set in. I simply saw one too many broken bodies and broken lives in the Emergency Department (I recall one particular car accident on one particular day caused me to burst into tears). And that was that. I reluctantly put away my scrubs and said goodbye to serving the community I loved, so entrenched in drugs, poverty, violence, and abuse....until I joined the Pain Clinic at The Hospital. I figured that it would be a good way to cling to my conviction of serving the same people, only in a less traumatic and less heart-wrenching way.


At the Pain Clinic, I told myself it was the boredom. I wasn't needed there. Being needed is the number one reason why I do anything in life, and without it, I feel purposeless. At the Pain Clinic, it didn't matter if I showed up or not, there was nothing for me to contribute. The doctor didn't remember my name even after six months. He would always--not very inconspicuously--sneak a peek at my name badge during the morning meetings, and if my badge was obscured, I would just be Hello there.


In some ways, being at the Pain Clinic was more heart-wrenching than being in the Emergency Department. The ED was a beacon of hope and brimming with life-saving bustle. The Pain Clinic was an experimental dose of maybe-this-will-help, and the patients must live with persistent suffering from chronic pain. I found ambulatory care boring and uninvolved. When my interviews for medical school started in the fall, I was happy to fade away without anyone noticing.


I haven't been to The Hospital in months, due in part to a flu shot technicality. But the day has come. Tomorrow, I am going in to inform Boss Man that I am not coming back, for good. It feels strange to me that I will be boarding the shuttle tomorrow (does it still run?) just like I did all of those years, but am actually quite nervous. How strange it is for me to return to a routine once familiar, and now so dreaded. I am mourning the loss of a big part of my life, much like when I graduated college and left IV. But new beginnings occur when we least expect them, right?


I'm bringing Boss Man some lemon bundt cake.