Professional Parties

It’s amazing to me how people always identify themselves as human doers vs. human beings. Take for example last Friday night. I flew out to visit my boyfriend and on the agenda was a party with the group of residents in his profession. One would think there are other things to talk about than work, but I kid you not, those conversations never happened. I was actually quite nervous about meeting his colleagues and attendings, for some unknown reason.

 

The first thing that struck me is that people were happy to see I really existed.  Nothing like a long distance relationship to really get people guessing if someone actually has a girlfriend or is just super creative with photo shop for those pictures on the mantle.

People usually begin conversations with the typical: so-what-do-you-do question.  However, how do you interject yourself into a conversation when everyone does the same thing (with the exception of you)?

 

"So how is it that I didn't even get asked what was wrong with my own patient when they were coding last night?" One intern mused to her colleague. "I mean, I KNOW that this patient has congenital cardiac blah blah blah and yet, they insist on seeing the chart.  I ended up just sitting behind the oxygen tank not even feeling a pulse when the whole thing was happening.  Its like I got pushed out of the way." (Me thinking, gee, assertive skills is obviously not her strong suit, but not about to tell her that.)

 

"Oh I know what you mean, I actually was running a code on a patient when some stupid nurse decided to try barking orders.  I actually had to identify myself as someone who knew more than she did." (Me thinking, gee, you should have chosen surgery as a specialty...)

 

Most of the individuals would begin talking to my boyfriend and then eventually asked how long I was going to be in town. It shocked me that they were surprised when I said, 48 hours.  Hello? They all know how long a "golden weekend" is. Only once during the whole evening did one person ask what I did. When I began to tell him my title he actually dazed off in the middle of it and mumbled something about finding chips before he wandered off.  I'm not kidding here. Yup, doctors and their social skills at their finest.

 

I really tried to seek out the spouses and significant others of the doctors hoping to find some common ground. However that ended up being more of a daytime TV interview session.

 

Me: "So are you from here?"

Spouse: "Yup." or "No I was in forestry in California but I couldn't stand being away from so-and-so.  I left home and moved across the country and have been in retail ever since."

Me: "How did you guys meet?"

Spouse: Various stories of college, quick marriages/house buying/relocation before residency.

 

There was a trend here:  no one really asked me questions and typically every spouse gave up something HUGE to be with their doctor significant other. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the war stories of who stayed up the longest on call, how many codes, how many admits continued with the residents oblivious to outside interests we call "life." No one remarked on hobbies, activities, interests, etc.. (Although we did have a couple of exciting moments when the host played the accordion while the attending accompanied him on the piano.) One would say the conversation was due to the one-dimensional aspect of being a medical resident, but even the spouses couldn't elaborate

 

It was like two separate parties going on.  The doctors were describing how hard it is being a resident and the spouses were talking about their version of the journey in supporting a doctor. I truly was the only one in the room with a professional career without being a doctor.

 

How do we define ourselves and why is it mostly centered around our profession?  We certainly must have learned this somewhere along the way.  Somewhere between grade school and adulthood, we stopped talking about what really interests us and began to talk about the other stuff that fills up our lives. I think its because its emotionally safe to give ourselves labels like "accountant," "teacher," "lawyer," and "doctor" vs. "skier," "poet," "musician." Somehow those latter things just don't hold the weight of being productive.  We measure ourselves by what we do; what we accomplish; And I have to admit that even I passed judgment on those who identified their focus as the person they loved, especially when perhaps I assumed, it wasn't themselves.