As I write into it, my memoir keeps shapeshifting. In the latest iteration, it’s about the transformation from doctor to writer. The truth is that I’m both. I’ve moved from being a doctor who writes to being a writer who works part-time as a doctor. Sometimes, it’s not easy to put myself into compartments.
Yesterday was supposed to be a writing day, but I was pulled back into the doctor world more than once. I began the day by driving into the clinic to give a 30-minute lecture to the residents. The physical activity of talking for 30 minutes to a group of engaged and attentive residents was rewarding, but still an effort for me, the introvert.
It took more time than I anticipated to wind down and get back into day-off mode, into the silence and solitude that helps me to do what Cal Newport calls Deep Work. In fact, I never got into the right channel. Not that I didn’t try.
Several times during the day, I tried to write my way into what I wanted to say, but my thoughts stayed too near the surface. I couldn’t go deep, so I turned to reading instead. I finished my YA novel, See All the Stars by Kit Frick.
Like the Old Days
I decided to fall back on the old trick I used as a Medical Resident. Back then, when I had to prepare a presentation for Journal Club, I would set my alarm to an ungodly early hour to do my prep work in the morning. Last night, before I set my alarm for this morning, I flipped through my emails, expecting to delete most of them.
There was an email telling me I had to sign a death certificate. Since moving to the ambulatory setting, I rarely have to sign one. When I was in hospice, the requests to sign a certificate never came out of the blue. The hospice nurses were kind enough to let me know when someone died.
I guess it didn’t occur to the Medical Examiner that a phone call might have been a kinder way to let me know that my patient died. Instead, I had to read through the notes appended to the certificate to figure out what had happened.
An Unexpected Death
My patient had been staying with his son after he and his wife separated. (Really, this was all in the notes attached to the certificate!) His son found him yesterday morning. I’m not sure how the ME got my name instead of the primary care provider. I suspect my name was on a prescription bottle.
I opened my patient’s electronic record to review the medical history, and I certified the cause of death that the ME had entered: atherosclerotic heart disease, a presumed heart attack. An unexpected death arrives to remind me that life doesn’t happen in neat compartments.
Being a writer determines and enhances the kind of doctor that I am. Being a doctor requires some adjustments to my writing schedule. Ultimately, it’s a pretty good tradeoff.