New Beginnings

As I sit to write this post, I have taken the first official steps of a new chapter in my life : My Residency. It has been a wild couple of months of documentation, visa application, apartment hunting and packing. But I have managed it and today I sit here, a to-be-intern in Internal Medicine starting June 29^th. Lets recap what all happened since the last post I uploaded….

1)      Receiving my contract letter: I think I spent most of the time after 20^th March celebrating that I matched. It was only when I received my contract letter in the first week of April that it started to sink in, that I had officially finished medical school and was now going to enter my post-graduate training. It was exhilarating and scary simultaneously.

2)      Statement of Need (Ministry of Health Letter): Have things ever been smooth in this USMLE journey? Trust this application to stick to the pattern. It took an exact 2 weeks, countless phone calls, a quarrel with the assistant, a trip by a friend, two trips by my mother and a shitload of time spent on the Delhi-bound flights and the airport, to finally have my letter in my hand. I think at one point I started thinking contingency plans – miss orientation, make up by using vacation time, reshuffle my Step 3 prep plans, etc. etc. etc.

3)      ECFMG Application for J1: That moment when I received an email from ECFMG saying that my CV was incomplete will be etched in my head forever. I was literally counting seconds, telling myself that I’d be able to apply for my visa on time, when out of nowhere comes an email that blindsided me by initially giving me no clue about what was incomplete. This was during mid-May and keeping with the timeline mentioned on the website, I was hoping to get my visa papers by June 3^rd. Thereafter a Visa interview date within a week and hopefully my passport in my hand a couple of days before I was scheduled to fly out. That email pushed things back by a couple of days and I started wondering whether I’d have reschedule my flight from India. ECFMG however turned out to be a sweetheart and sent me my visa papers within a week. By the third week of May, I was on the US Consulate website looking up interview dates.

4)      Visa Interview: It was just so typical that I laughed when I realized that when I had to select a date, the first available date would be 10 days down the line; previously, first available dates were within 2 days! But, once I snagged a date, everything went pretty smoothly. The interview was the shortest one I’ve had ever (not that I’ve had a lot of interviews). When the officer said, “Visa Approved” I couldn’t stop smiling. Was there a chance I was going to get rejected? I don’t know. I’d like to say I was 100% sure, but hell, it is an interview. Of course I wasn’t sure!

5)      Packing my bags: Have I ever mentioned that I hate packing? I do. I am not a light traveler. If I could get a wish for myself, it would be to train me to pack light. I need so many thigns that are my own, I get restless if I don’t take them (shampoos, body wash, nail clippers, hairpins, body lotion, home slippers, two combs, two towels, three napkins…that’s just a few things). Ultimately I don’t end up taking a lot of clothes, bottles is what snags most of the weight. Point is, I hate packing. I keep making lists and adding stuff to them. I’m not the biggest of persons – petite is so apt for me, it’s not remotely funny. So when I have to manage 3 bags and a carry-on laptop bag/haversack, I also hate changing flights. When luggage is checked in up to my final destination, I have a glow on my face that probably feels like I won the Nobel prize or something! I also hate arguing with the groundstaff for overweight baggage. Ughh!! I began packing my bags for a supposed 3- year stay over a month back. The saga ended 5 minutes before I left for the airport. Can you believe that?! If I were a sane person, I’d probably dedicate 3 days to packing and be done with it. But then, whoever said I was sane? I’d open my bags and then just leave them open because I got bored :-P ha ha!! I’m delighted that I managed to wade all my bags to the apartment here in one piece (and I mean me, not the bags).

6)      The first 2 weeks of June: There seems to have been a touch of fantasy and incredibility whenever I thought about sitting on the flight to the US. How can I, me, this little girl manage to do it all, make the move, shift to a different country (and continent) on a one-way ticket with no return date, to actually work in a hospital? I couldn’t even imagine coming to an empty apartment and going home shopping to turn it into a home. I couldn’t imagine driving a car on the wrong side of the road with a New York State license. I couldn’t imagine growing up. Finally. And then, strangely I also could.

My mind has been thinking too much. So many unanswered questions hit me simultaneously, I find it hard to just let go and enjoy. When my first flight took off the runway, I took a deep breath and told myself, “You’re actually doing this!” When I was at the Abu Dhabi airport during my stopover, I said, “It is happening. My immigration to the US is happening right now and I can’t get out of this.” When I reached JFK, I didn’t even bother to feel delighted at my favourite airport in the world. I was telling myself that this decision and this next step was going to be a great one and I would flourish.

There comes a time when all you want to do is get out of your childhood home and try to be your own person. That feeling is the one of growing up. I’ve always felt that I needed that – staying on my own, looking after my own apartment, paying my own bills, doing my own grocery, cooking and cleaning, making my own financial decisions and at the same time, doing well professionally. When you do medicine in India, you don’t really get to do that. Post-graduation basically restricts your life to the hospital – you go to the cafeteria to eat, you have the common maid to do your laundry, you have a shared hostel room that you never see because you’re stuck in the wards. You mature professionally but you never really get to evaluate your own self.

Girls my age have gotten married and have kids too. But did they ever think that they wanted to be themselves for some time and make sure that they had grown up in their own eyes? That is what I’m looking for and hopefully, at the end of these three years I shall have an answer J Until then, I’m going to enjoy the Rochester spring/summer because it doesn’t last for more than 3 odd months and after being here in January, I know how depressing winters can get.

To remind myself of how beautiful this place can be:

Where Did I Match?

UNITY HOSPITAL, ROCHESTER NEW YORK IT IS!!

And the suspense ends. Rather, it ended about 5 days back. I'll be flying into a beautiful city with some really friendly citizens and I shall look forward to about 6 months of 3 feet of snow :-)

Now that I have had 5 days to breath through and make myself believe that this is actually happening, I'm delighted. I'm a part of a distinguished and delighted group of to-be interns who matched this year. I am one of the few who can look back at Match Week with a fond smile and pat myself on my back and say," Mission Accomplished". I can look at the past two years and say, "Successful Journey". Whoever said that its the journey that matters and not the destination basically never reached the destination. I can't imagine feeling so at peace and satisfied about this journey if I hadn't matched.

But, back to where I matched. Rochester. have I mentioned that I have a thing for everything British except their cricket team? I love their accent, I love the names that they give places, I love their authors, I love their Royalty but I can't imagine wanting to live in England. Eureka!! I get to go to Rochester! Where every name is British, where the houses are so far apart, I get a good rural English feel, where I can stay in a place called Carriage Glenn and behave like I'm so English Royal myself and still get my dose of the USA :-)

I probably chose the worst month to go to Rochester during my interview season - January. But I had to see how bad the snow can get! They say the city blooms in the summer. Guess it is my turn to find out. I'm already excited, nervous, scared, happy, confident yet not so much....it's a myriad of emotions and feelings. One thing I know for certain, I'm actually glad I did not match into a Prelim position. I know I probably would not have said this 2 months ago when I was so intent on wanting Surgery. But the peace I'm getting by knowing that I am in this wonderful program for 3 years and will get out with an Internal Medicine degree under my belt, makes me sleep well at night and makes me calm. Really really calm :-)

I've actually been going through all my interview conversations with the faculty in my head since Friday. I'm glad i had the chance to tell them everything about myself - academics, personal, professional....everything! I can proudly say that they liked me enough to consider me for their program :-) what a confidence boost!!

I'm doubly excited because I even have a friend who matched at Unity. I mean, how cool is that? On Saturday, I just got this message saying,"So guess we have Unity in common, huh?" and I couldn't stop hoping against hope that it really meant what I thought it did.

And it did :-) ha ha!!! I think these three years are going to change me for the better. I can already see myself become more sure about myself. Being in a place like that, not too much city, not too much village, is going to be so great. And I'm so going to become an outdoorsy person. I promise. I'll only be able to utilise 3-4 months for that, so I'm going to make the best of it. No more lazying around :-)

Whew!! Lots of documentation to do, a family trip to be scheduled, packing to begin, house-hunting to start and an international drivers' licence to be applied for. USA baby, here I come!!

I'm Back !!

It has been over a year since I made my last entry. Things got very busy after I came back from rural posting in Shirur. We then started with all the heavy postings - Medicine, Surgery, Ob-Gyn. That was followed by a nerve-racking USMLE Step 1, Step 2 CK and Step 2 CS preparation. Amidst all of that, I had the opportunity to complete 2 elective rotations at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. I visited my Uncle in California, saw a little bit of LA for the one day that I was there for my CS examination, made a return to New York (this time with my best friend) to fall in love with it AGAIN (why do you do this to me New York?!), met some wonderful people, made some brilliant and funny friends, learnt from smashing residents and Professors, grew up a little (not so much though :-P ), carried all my baggage alone everywhere (trust me, that is my greatest achievement - you know why, because only today morning I dreamt that I left my check-in bag at the security counter at the airport. I was running across the entire length 10 mins before my flight took off, just to get my bag. Such a relief to get up and realise I was in bed, at home and that my airport story ended 3 months back!), gained weight (that was second achievement. a whole 2.5 kg!! in 2 months!) and basically wanted to come back home, but so did not at the same time!!

People do many more things in the time that I spent in the USA, than I did. But, then, looking back, I loved the relaxed life I lived there. Yes, I worked. In New Haven, I was in the hospital from 9 am to 5 pm. In Boston, I was there from 6 am to 6 pm. But, I roamed about, I read, I studied, I watched FRIENDS all over again, I developed newfound love for The Big Bang Theory, I found Chipotle (oh holy God! I loved their barbacoa so much, it hurts to remember it now. Please please take me back there now!!), I loved Boston (that's saying a lot because, frankly, I dreaded being alone in a city without any new friends) Yet my first weekend out in the city, I knew I was going to love it, with all its rain, sunshine, snow and wind. Oh yes, I experienced my first ever snow fall :-) As beautiful as it looked from inside the house, it was tough to walk out there. People may laugh saying, "So excited about snowfall of all things?!" But, hey, I live in a tropical country. The day I left for the US, the temperature here was a whopping 40 degree Celsius. If I see snowfall, I'm going to enjoy it and call it beautiful.

After my posting in Shirur, I'd realised that I don't go beserk with new surroundings. I adapt, without any complains. In fact, it takes me months to realise that I actually enjoyed the change. During my time in Shirur, I never once thought of the stay as wonderful, enjoyable or easy. I just did what I had to do. I had lots of time to ponder (oh yeah, I did, lots and lots of it. My best friends will attest to that.) It was only maybe months down the line that I looked back at that month and classified it as 'Good. I managed to live on my own.' It was the same with my US trip. During that time, I didn't really believe it was amazing or bad. I just went along with the flow, week by week, ticking things off my list. It is only now, 3 months down the line, that I look back and say "wow, I really did it. And I enjoyed every moment." That probably gives me most hope about the kind of person I shall be when I fly out of my homestead.

So what is next up for me? I have decided to go the US way. I'm currently compiling applications, putting together Personal Statements, looking up programs to apply for. If things all work out, next year, at this time, I shall be working my ass off at some wonderful hospital. If things don't, well, I think that is a story for another post. I get the feeling that I'm sounding happy and optimistic in this one. Let's keep it that way :-)

It feels so good to be back. I'm sure I'm going to spend an hour or two going through my old posts, reliving some memories, good and bad. I've missed writing so much. I'm glad I forced myself to take some time off and do this. Now, of course, I shall be itching to write my next post.

p.s. the title of this blog finally makes complete sense!! I've officially become Dr. Pranjali. I'm still not used to it. My parents have to keep reminding me to add that 'Dr.' before my name :-P


Adding a picture of my Italian Brunch In New York. A tribute to the love I developed for eating. The white stuff is the best ever cheese I've had in a long long time :-)