Almost too much

I don't really know what to say about the last nine months.  They have been the most difficult, challenging, demeaning, awful months of my life.    As it turns out, being a female surgical resident in a program with a more than healthy dose of the old boy's club is painful.  Incredibly painful. Knives in your gut kind of painful.

I have been told I'm too feminine to be a surgeon.  I've been told no male will take me seriously because I dress well. I've been instructed to wear my hair pulled back in a conservative knot since the long curls are "too much".  I've been coerced into trading in all of my heels for flats.  My wardrobe has been forcefully changed to khaki slacks and button down shirts.  I have been taunted, teased, and tortured by various male attendings who find my lack of a Y chromosome to be quite infuriating.

I have bent a knee.  I have genuflected.  I have conceded many a battle to continue my surgical training.  I have sacrificed. By the grace of God, I have not yet been broken. However, it's been touch and go more than once.

I'm tired.

I would appreciate any support in prayer any one is willing to give.

Don't Snort and Drive

I'm knee deep in my trauma rotation at the moment.  In the past two weeks, I have learned something very important about myself.

I am not a trauma surgeon.

I do not like bullet wounds.  I do not like stab wounds.  I do not like patients who get high and run their cars into trees/ culverts/ other cars/ log trucks/ pedestrians.  (In fact, I am now afraid to drive at all in this town because if my last Thursday is any indication, over half of all drivers are on their way to methadone clinic, high and on their way to methadone clinic, or just high.)

This explains why on my one of four days off this month, I have barricaded myself in my home with my dog, a six pack of Coke, and all of the seasons of How I Met Your Mother.  It's a safe place.