notes from above ground

vii

No matter how stagnant something seems, or how much you think you’re “used to it,” you never really have any idea what’s going to happen next.

The lifestyle of a surgeon is not conducive with human biology. It’s winter, so you never really stand a chance of seeing the sun or making any vitamin D or experiencing joy of any kind. You go to the hospital before sunrise and leave after sunset.

The residents spend their entire day in the above ground, which is, for them, paradoxically, literally, underground, in the hospital basement. The endless days of having their biologies disrespected by the demands of their workplace makes them treat each other, and especially us med students, subhuman. They don’t exactly trip over themselves to foster a warm and fuzzy social dynamic. Being in any proximity with these people fills me with more raw dread than I’ve felt in a long time. They’re always either making fun of me, telling me I’m doing something wrong, or being otherwise dissatisfied with my existence.

The only way out is through, unfortunately. I’ve toyed with other ways out, but none of them feel right.

Maybe I can trick myself into thinking of it as a sort of boot camp for discipline, something that will build character, make me tougher and more resilient. If I can get through this, I can get through anything. And imagine the profits!

I know that regardless of the circumstances, I can survive this. No one ever died from light bullying. Infuriating social dynamics can do me no harm. I won’t let them make me feel like a puny little misbehaving kid, because my mind is a fortress which doesn’t allow things like that to penetrate it. With each day, I’ll gain experience and confidence, adding buttresses to my fortress and making it more impenetrable. Boot camp.

The present moment, in its eternity, will someday see me doing something besides this. There will come a day when I don’t have to wake up at 4 AM to patrol the above ground carrying a bucket of bandages and scissors and saline, not speaking unless spoken to. There will come a day when I’m no longer a hollowed-out vessel for people to project their chronic stress and self-hatred onto. People will see me as a real person even when I’m not bent over backwards trying to anticipate their every need.

Why is everyone so serious about surgery? I find myself wanting to say “It’s not life-and-death,” but surgery is one of the rare places in life where it usually is life-and-death. But do we really have to be so serious about life and death? Can everybody just calm down?

I hate these people, and I don't hate anyone. It’s hard not to hate someone when all of your time with them is spent in such a neurotic, psychotic, structured, contrived environment. And when they’re mean to you.

Maybe it’s the above ground that’s the problem. It drives this wedge between us, making them hate me as much as I hate them, turning us into enemies when really we should be allies against the system that puts us all under so much stress. In the underground, at least I would have the chance to understand them better—enough to not hate them. I will likely never get the pleasure, not that I’d take it if it were offered. Because I think they are also somehow fundamentally weird (who would choose this life?).

I feel like I’m inside the wringer. I’m being wrung. But that’s okay. At least I’m alive.

There is nothing under the sun that I can’t handle, though I suppose the sun doesn’t quite feel like it’s above me here in this hospital basement.

I had no idea how foreign the world of surgery would feel. Foreign isn’t the right word. I think what I mean is perverse. It’s fucked up that we do this. Playing god, treating the human body like a machine, sneak dissing scrub techs over lifeless bodies, all while sleep-deprived. Why is everyone so confident that the things we’re doing are good? I know surgery can be life-saving or whatever, but look at all the post-surgical complications that happen! We’re just making new problems that are often worse than the problems we were trying to fix!

I’m being tormented around the clock. My brain has been temporarily rewired to only think about surgery. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The other shoe is a new day of surgery, and the drop is the sound of my alarm clock. I pick up both of the dropped shoes, put them on, scowl at how ugly they are, and walk into the unforgiving and desolate above ground.