Life Beyond Surgery

3:36 PM

Author | Sara Walker

Despite Surgery being over for me for a few weeks now, I still can't quite believe it. I enjoyed the experience greatly, but it was all a bit surreal. I wake up now at 6am (which is fairly early when you realize that clinic starts at 8am), and I'm still shocked when it's light outside. But also quite happy about that fact, as you might imagine.

Now I'm partway through my Family Medicine rotation at Domino's Farms, and I'm really enjoying it too. All of a sudden, I went from discussing one very specific aspect of a person's health to taking all-comers. I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to complete these clinical rotations before haring off to the lab - it provides the context and a reminder of why I wanted to do this in the first place. It's the reason why you study so hard during the first two years of medical school: because that knowledge helps you make an actual difference in the quality of people's lives.

And as I'm realizing this, my time in Family Medicine is more than halfway over, and it will soon be time to rejoin my lab and begin my PhD in Bioinformatics. I'm looking forward having schedule flexibility again and I'm excited to start coding again (although less so for the inevitable debugging). But I'm also sad to be leaving behind the patient interactions and to be left behind by my classmates. Well, at least I'll be getting more sleep in the near future :)

Last Sunday marked the 11th Annual Dean's Cup golf outing, and it was a blast. The forecast scared me all week ("Afternoon thunderstorms. Some may be severe."), but the weather turned out great. It was definitely hot but there was a breeze, so it was lovely. I already can't wait for next year!

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