.post dooty post.

I am now in the last leg of my 2-month Pediatrics rotation. I will be spending the next 2 weeks in the Pedia ER, and then I shall be done with the Department forever.

Or maybe not.

I don't know. I haven't admitted it to anyone, but these past few weeks, I have been enjoying myself despite all the toxicities that come with the rotation. More than once, I have had to go on every-other-day duties in order to make adjustments for the lack of manpower we are currently experiencing in our block. I have experienced having to stay overtime with my blockmates in the wards, the delivery room, and in the neonatal intensive care unit, just to ensure that all our assigned work are done. I've pushed stretchers, bassinets, and oxygen tanks. I've facilitated requests for blood, laboratories, and other things a bantay ought to be doing.

It gets so tiring sometimes that I fall asleep the instant my back hits the bed (that's why I make sure to never lie down until after I take a bath.. hehe) and wake up just in time to go back to PGH again. I've lost much weight over the past few weeks that my mom demanded to take me out to dinner the last time they came over to bring my stuff and visit me.

Every single day, I can find something to complain about - the workload, the orders that come at you left and right, the overload of patients - and yet every day, I know I can also find something to smile about.

For quite some time now, I have been entertaining the idea of taking some time off after graduation and after the board exams. I've been wanting to take a break from medicine and use up some time to discover myself, plunge into other activities in an effort to find out what I really want to do with my life, and recapture a positive attitude towards life and work.

But now... maybe I don't want to do that.

I am not saying with certainty that I do want to go into Pediatrics. There are still some aspects of the specialty that leave me having second thoughts about doing it for the rest of my life. I still do not want a lifestyle that will cost me too much time away from my family (both the present and the future), my church, and everything else that I hold dear.

What I am gradually discovering is that maybe I do want to practice medicine after all. Maybe I am slowly beginning to see myself immersed in the profession. Maybe I am starting to realize that there is a higher purpose to everything, that there is a bigger picture worth considering. Maybe, it is beginning to sink in that I truly am made for this, right from the very start.

I believe God has been leading me up to this point the whole time. And the journey is not over yet.

I am pretty much a simple person. Little things bring me great joy, and little celebrations of life constitute much of my everyday happiness. Most of the time, I do not understand how the complexities of the world work, but that suits me just fine. I do not seek to change the world, but I know that as I continue working on changing myself for the better, things around me will also little by little begin to change.

Every day, I try to be a good daughter (really working on that! hehe), a good sister (miss you ate!), and a good friend (and a good girlfriend, too!). These are the things that are important to me. It becomes easier when I acknowledge that all these things come through the grace of God, that it is never by my own efforts that I am able to do the things that I do. Everything I need to be able to fulfill all these roles perfectly have already been deposited on the inside of me by God. Everything has already been accounted for by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

I therefore conclude... I already have what it takes to be a good doctor.

It's all here. On the inside of me. And it's been here the whole time. Waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be released.

Glory to God!

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Miss you dear. I know you're loving Community Medicine... pero uuwi ka pa din ha? hehe.

Love you my homi.

MOA.