A colleague told me that returning to surgical training should be a snap after submitting a PhD with a six month old. I can see the logic, but the two seem unrelated.
In the last ten years, I have had three full time jobs – surgical trainee, PhD student and mother to increasing numbers of children (now three). Each job has required completely different skills, and none has prepared me for the others (at least, consciously).
Surgical training, and junior doctoring is a sometimes frantic job – there always seems to be more on your list than you have time for. I guess this is because it is the ultimate “postal worker” job. Patients don’t stop getting sick, or asking for explanations, or wanting support just because it turns 6pm. I never realised, but I sort of trained myself to deal with that sort of lifestyle – poor self-direction, but ability to juggle and and bounce from task to task.
Medical research is not necessarily a difficult task – it is as tough as you want it to be. Usually, it’s about following steps in an algorithm. I didn’t find it as fun as clinical medicine in the beginning, and as my project progressed, it got more and more boring. Initially, I relished hours of low pressure work, until I realized I was actually meant to be creating a schedule, planning and completing. As the project collapsed into negative results, and my supervisor eyes’ glazed over, I had to learn to push through the pain. Entirely a different type of skill set.
Parenting was entirely different for me. I found myself in intensely emotional arguments, and feared “failure” as the little treasure who just-would-not-go-to-sleep-help-me-please had my heart. What if I broke my child’s psyche? What if my child didn’t like me? What if my child just keeps on crying?!!! But while this job is intensely emotional, it is also continuous, low grade, and often not mentally challenging. The same solution has to be repeated many more times than I customarily require.
I got better at my three jobs, and I hope I continue to do so. They have all changed the person I am. I have no idea if this makes it easier to succeed at surgical training. It will certainly make me a different trainee, but that’s just different. I have been bouncing this stuff around for the last few days. Hubby, in his infinite wisdom, suggests I should use my experience to treat my consultants and patients like three year olds. That might work.
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