Losing The Fear

I'm sitting here and I should be cramming for the (multiple choice) exam I have in two hours. But I am not, I guess I just don't have The Fear I used to . . . it isn't like I haven't been studying. I've read the entire book for the rotation twice through over the last six weeks. I'm reviewing some stuff that didn't stick today. But I'm pretty calm.

I do believe in maximizing my efficiency and I recognize that I tend to get more done in any one category of stuff when I don't do it all the time. Efficiency maximization is a skill I have learned both over graduate school and over parenting. It means getting enough sleep, eating regularly, getting some exercise, and minimizing my guilt about time spent with my family. It means being focused when I work in both short and long term goals. It means using my time and stopping if I am going through the motions without gain.

I keep getting shocked by how other students use their time, as if the goal is to put the most time in and not to learn the most or provide the best patient care. There was the guy who got so little sleep that he fell asleep while talking to a patient. There was the guy who would study standing up so he wouldn't fall asleep. I think that is the sign you should close the book, sleep, and study the next day.

These last two weeks have been pretty relaxed - there weren't a lot of surgeries and I generally got out of the hospital pretty early. One of the residents seemed annoyed that I would take some of my "time off" to go to the gym. He wanted us to just stick around and put in face time. Which is really rather insulting. We certainly didn't get this far by slacking off all the time. I think I know how to manage my time effectively if I got my PhD done in 4 years while making two babies. Grrrr.

But even with all that, I should probably actually be studying right now. This really is my last chance to pound in the table of etiologies of primary amenorrhea.