That moment when

I choose a bowl of cereal over a Blue Menu microwave meal because the microwave dinner takes too much effort. 

The root of my discomfort

I've been pretty uncomfortable with my practice for a few months. I keep being told it's normal and it will get better in a few years, but I'm seriously having a hard time getting to work some days. 

After talking it out with my VERY patient partner, I think that my unease comes from more patients than time. He asked what would make life better for me right now. Some things are fairly easy like a housekeeper to deal with my dirty socks and ring around the tub. 

But the big answer was a month off with a locum covering my practice so I could make care plans for my patients. Some of them have diseases I've never heard of. How can I possibly feel comfortable treating them??

I guess that's where the extra years in practice comes in? 

Anger

So many of my new patients are so, so very angry at their previous docs. I expected some disgruntled patients, but many of my new patients are incredibly upset. 

Most of them feel like no one has been listening to them. I'm not doing much different from the previous docs, and truly feel like I'm rushing them out of my exam rooms. I worry like crazy that I'm going to eventually become a doc who they think is not listening. It may be that their docs were listening but because I'm a fresh face, now they feel heard. 

They also are angry that diagnoses are missed. For me, it's been easy. I see all the symptoms in chronological order. I see what's been ordered and what's left. I see what's been ruled out. It makes me look like a genius when it just means I've done my homework. 

 Then there's the racist, genderist, homophobic etc. comments that I get as well. I try to stop my patients from talking before they say something I'LL regret because it means that I'll hear it again whenever I see their face. 

No great lesson from all this. Just legitimate worry for my future and trying to figure out why it's like this.