Introductions are in order

I realize I may have jumped into things rather quickly.
I apologize and will now take some time to introduce myself:

I'm a newly minted third year medical student at a large east coast medical school. I love medicine and am full of excitement, hope and determination when looking at my future.

I'm currently rotating on my obgyn rotation at a major hospital and am daily being buoyed up and dragged down by the medicine I see there. I never thought blogging would be for me, but after reading Hyperbole and a Half (if you haven't read it, stop reading this drivel and go read it), I realized it can be a combination of catharsis and prose. And I need the catharsis. Boy, do I.

I don't consider myself naive in the slightest. Some would even call me mildly jaded. And yet I still find things I witness at the hospital shocking and sometimes soul crushing. Residents who've stopped trying to be good physicians and are now simply trying to escape beratement by their superiors. Patients in the OR being ignored in the bustle, who are trying so hard to be brave but can't help but let a few silent tears slip out before they are put under anesthesia in that cold, sterile and frankly terrifying room.

Not everything is that bad. Today I was told by a grateful patient that I had "sweet eyes" and I "would make such a kind doctor." I also witness some amazing feats of endurance surgery where all the staff in the room give their all until late into the night so that the patient has a shot of coming out cancer free.

I need to get these emotions out of my mind and heart and onto the page. I only hope you bear with me on this roller coaster journey that seems set to be fraught with intense highs and lows.