The Night Before the ICU

I’m afraid.

Afraid of failing in a high-stakes setting.

It feels like I haven’t done a meaningful medicine rotation since third year of medical school, and now, I’m about to start a two-week ICU rotation—managing nearly ten patients, introducing myself to them and their families as their doctor.

It feels like one wrong move could lead to someone's premature death.

Logically, though, I know it’ll be fine.

I'm a resident after all – everything I do is being supervised by an attending physician.

I’m not the first intern to start residency in the ICU feeling unprepared.

But still—I'm afraid.

Even though I’ll be working just a short drive from home, I won’t see my daughter for days at a time. I’ll leave before she wakes up and get home after she falls asleep.

My wife—now in her third trimester, sore and tired—will have to carry the full weight of our home life while I work six days a week, over twelve hours a day.

Yesterday, my wife said something offhand that stuck with me:

“You always do this. You get worked up about how hard something is going to be—and then you show up, do it, and afterwards you say, ‘That wasn’t so bad.’”

I’m praying this is one of those things, too—that what I’m struggling with most is the anxiety of not knowing what’s ahead, not the work itself.