Sometime next year, the hope is that Clancy will be getting out of primary medicine (narrowly defined). There are a number of reasons for this, one of which is social fatigue. Clancy is an introvert. This has never gotten in the way of how well she does her job, but it does mean that at the end of the day she is as much socially exhausted as physically exhausted. It’s not that she is anti-person, but they socially wear her out. Being a physician is an odd career choice, but she has in the past noticed that some kinds of interactions fatigue her more than other kinds of actions. Sort of like how I am an introvert who gets tapped out in a room full of a lot of adult people but loves striking up conversations on airplanes, she can see a lot of patients in a hospital and be fine but having them come in one at a time to her clinic has a different effect.
Nothing that has happened over the last nine months changes this, but with the above in mind it’s been strange - though incredibly heartwarming - how many of her patients have given us baby stuff. We haven’t had a baby shower - and wouldn’t if not for someone else’s insistence - but we’ve been getting a lot of stuff regardless. More from her patients than her coworkers, interestingly enough (though statistically this makes sense). We have some used stuff, some purchased stuff, and some homemade stuff (including what will be JB’s first blankie).
This - the personal connections more than the stuff itself - is the first indication of what will be lost in the transition.
She won’t miss the Facebook Friend requests, though.
I once took a course called “Career Psychology,” that was supposed to help you pick a major. One woman, who wanted to be a doctor but scored heavily introverted on the Myers-Briggs test, decided to become an anesthesiologist because “all her patients would be under most of the time”.
It didn’t seem a bad way to go.
Comment by Kirk — October 18, 2012 @ 10:02 am