Monday, April 25, 2011

Life's been good to me so far

"I can't complain but sometimes I still do,
Life's been good to me so far"
Joe Walsh

I know I whine a lot in this blog. I am really not a negative person. I have a whole lot to be thankful about.

1. I have been married to the same smoking hot wife for over 26 years.
2. I have two great adult children and I actually got one to move out of the house.
3. I belong to the best anaesthetic department in the province and I am the boss.
4. I make a ton of money. Money can't buy happiness but it sure can rent a lot. Sure a lot of doctors make more than I do but who wants to work as hard as they do or do what they do?
5. At 53, I am actually in better shape physically then I was at 43... or 33.
6. I live in a great neighbourhood. Who cares if rich kids buy drugs across the street?
7. I was raised by two educated parents in a middle class neighbourhood. I went to the best high school in the province. My parents instilled the values of a university education but never insisted on what we took. When I phoned my mother to tell her I had been accepted to medicine, she said,"Oh I guess that's what you wanted."
8. I am in a specialty I like. During the first year of my residency , I remember thinking, "this is what I was born to do."
9. I have a great staff in the Pain Clinic.
10. Sure I spent over 13 years at the Centre of Excellence but I had at least 4 chances to escape before I pulled my parachute. Truth is, I must have liked it a little there. I also with very little resources and support established a Pain Clinic there which has evolved into something much bigger. Too bad I don't work there anymore.
11. I won an award.
12. Surgeons actually aren't that bad to work with. I actually like most of them. Even the psychopaths are entertaining, watching all the games they play.
13. I also really admire nurses. Not just because I married one. Sometimes when I am bored I watch surgery and I am just amazed at how the OR nurses anticipate what the surgeon wants and keep track of all that equipment. Floor nurses of course do a great job doing what must be a really shitty job. If you want to get the lowdown on a patient, you ask the nurse.
14. Quite a few administrators are really hard-working individuals who if you divided their salary by the number of hours they worked would be making less per hour than most of their underlings. Much of what they do is affected by how much money they have and by politics; two things they have no control over.

So why don't I blog about that.

Well...

When I started my blog 4 years ago in addition to having stuff to get off my chest, I actually hoped that people would read it. I am by nature a sarcastic person; sarcasm is the lowest form of humour but it is humour. It is also usually negative. I could write about the list of arthroscopies I did where nothing happened but that would be pretty boring so I would rather write about the horrendoplasty I was involved with. Likewise I could write about some of the really great people I have met and worked with over the years but that would also be boring so writing about assholes and sociopaths is much more interesting and sooooo therapeutic.

I will try to more positive.

I can't promise anything though.

2 comments:

ZMD said...

Thanks for the insight. I didn't realize it is Thanksgiving in Canada already

Bleeding Heart said...

With all the shit going on in the world, every day should be Thanksgiving.