በምን ትዝ ብሎኝ ነው? እኔንጃ። But I just missed writing here and I wanna share one of the things I haven’t tell anyone about till now. This piece is one part of my internship I never talk about. You won’t hear me reminiscing about gyne and if you know me, you’d understand how strange that is. I was always the delulu one the overly ገጣጣ intern who found joy in almost every corner of the hospital. The one who’d get excited about her morning rounds, the one who always started her days smiling. I loved internship. But in gyne, I was a different version of myself. One I didn’t recognize.
Those 3 months broke me in every way possible. Emotionally. Physically. The environment was cold. Unwelcoming. I always felt like an outsider whenever I walked into the wards. I still remember my first night on duty because it felt like a test I was doomed to fail from the beginning. I was assigned at the emergency which is usually considered as the better side to be on compared to the labor ward. In the emergency, you can finish your tasks early if you admit patients for priming and induction, you will get some breathing space for the rest of the night.
But that was not the case on my shift.
We had two complicated patients. One a first trimester pregnant woman came with nephrotic syndrome which should have been admitted to internal medicine ward and we had to walk back and forth for consultation at least 4x that night and the senior resident checked in multiple times growing more frustrated each time
“ዶክ አሁንም አልመጡም እንዴ? Consultation ግን ለጥፈሻል አይደል?”
he said, eyes narrowing in suspicion…
“አዎ ቅርብ ሰዓት ነው ሄጄ የመጣሁት”
and then headed back to the IM ward again… probably a fifth trip in the night… Consultation መለጠፌን ላረጋግጥ *This is where you’re supposed to giggle a bit. C’mon 😀*
And the other patient arrived past midnight around 8:30 a known chronic hypertensive patient who came with IUFD who we were not supposed to admit in the first place but the midwife told me to call the resident which I did and the next thing I did was put the patient on bed and putting the ultrasound probe to confirm the fetal heart beat and then came the moment I’ll never forget the year 2 resident clearly tired, frustrated maybe even a little angry because we called him in the middle of the night turned his frustration towards me. I know it wasn’t personal. I tell myself that even now. But in that moment it felt deeply personal. It felt like I was failing, like I didn’t belong, like I wasn’t enough.
That night was the first time I questioned everything. My competence. My knowledge. My place in the hospital. It was the night I realized fear can be more suffocating than exhaustion. It was the night I learned that one person’s harsh words can echo louder than a hundred encouraging ones.
Yessss, You don’t hear me talk about gyne often because gyne didn’t just challenge me it changed me from the very beginning. It took a cheerful, confident girl and slowly turned her into someone who doubted herself. But in a way, I’m glad it was my last attachment because if it had been the first, things might have turned out very differently.
I don’t really know why I’m writing this now but if there’s one thing I want you to take away it’s this: Medicine will break you not once but over and over again. But It will also teach you how to keep showing up. How to cry in silence and still smile in front of everyone. And They don’t teach you that in textbooks but it’s real and maybe just maybe, that’s the beauty of it all.
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