At the end is a beginning

Every time we set a goal for ourselves and we reach it, we quickly learn that the destination has opened up new opportunities for growth. Ideally, throughout our life we continue moving, and growing and stretching and optimizing all that we are capable of.

Each of the 5 of us are on our own journeys. The kids are working on cultivating their social skills in the midst of distancing due to a pandemic. Randy is figuring out what direction he would like to pursue when it comes to going back into the workforce after years as a chef and stay at home dad. One thing that I didn't expect was that this move has pushed me to exercise skills and surgical techniques that I didn't have to use very much over the past year or few years.

This new environment has served to remind me of how multifaceted the life of an Obstetrician Gynecologist can be and how large of a repertoire of surgery we can do. I had accepted that there were certain aspects of my skill set that I wouldn't use anymore when I left private practice and became a hospitalist last year and I was willing to give those things up for the sanity that came with eliminating the stressful environment in which I was at the mercy of insurance companies and seeing an obscene amount of patients in the office every day. Coming into this new work environment, I have had a rekindling of the love for clinical medicine as well as a return to performing surgeries that I hadn't performed in some time.

Having more time to attend to each patient in the clinic because significantly less people are crammed onto your schedule per day has allowed me to truly love seeing patients in that setting again. Getting to work with registrars, house officers and medical students has given me the opportunity to teach again. There is little monotony because every day is different and the patients keep us on our toes. I get to save lives, make lives better, impart medical knowledge to the next generation of physicians and welcome life safely into the world.

I know that I am rambling a bit, but all of this was to say..... my journey has begun again. I'm grateful that my life is not stagnant, even when it means that I am constantly challenged.