The doctor bit

I got into medicine about seven years into my career as a paramedic. Stoked doesn’t begin to describe it. It felt like some impossible goal I’d somehow managed to achieve. The next four years at med school were actually pretty cool. I loved learning. I loved pushing myself, grasping new topics.

I met some pretty incredible people in that time, including two of my best mates. Importantly we are all mad Harry Potter fans. Jo even embarked on this epic mission to create three identical Harry Potter quilts so that we each have one to curl up under when we’re adulting at our best in the foetal position on the couch. I was so totally blown away when she gave them to us that I took a photo of it and put it on twitter and tagged J.K. Rowling, cause I knew she’d be just as excited. I digress.

The journey through medicine (which I am still very much travelling) is long. It’s challenging. It’s all consuming. The training is rigorous. You can never achieve enough. You never stop competing. With yourself, with others. I think coming into it later in life puts another spin on things too. Definitely some positives, but also some negatives.

I have never doubted my passion for medicine. But I have realised that you can’t run on empty forever. Life is so fragile. So unpredictable. Making the decision this year to pause, to restock, and to take some time for myself was so much harder to make than one would think. But we don’t know what’s around the corner. And after 13 years of head down bum up, I have finally learnt that sometimes you just have to stop, breathe, and enjoy the now.

And that’s what this year is about.