Storms Don't Last Forever

This week in ISM I shifted from working on my resume to actually starting to make calls and speak with professionals. This week proved to be quite challenging for me because it was difficult to not only find pediatric surgeons that work in my area but to find available pediatric surgeons. In my area there were only around seven pediatric surgeon. Of that six pediatric surgeons were unavailable due to understaffing because many of the doctors were on vacation at the time. This gave me insight on how private practices function because with just two or three doctors not being available, the entire staff takes on double the work instead of having replacements like most bigger hospitals.

After that I called a pediatric surgeon who specializes in pediatric surgery of the ears, nose, and throat. In a way, it was a benefit that the pediatric surgeons before the ENT

surgeon were not available because it opened up my mind to a new specialty that I had not considered yet.

Another thing that I realized from calling all of these doctors was that many of the doctors were working at more than one location, so while I could attend the closer location like Plano I couldn’t attend the ones in Dallas or Fort worth, which would be troublesome under one mentor. From there, I decided to move down line end go into more general surgeons. With the general surgery at least I would be able to get an idea of the typical surgery environment without specializing in one particular field. With the general surgeons I was able to get methods of contact where I would send my resume in directly to the the doctor which proved to be more beneficial on scheduling because many of the doctors were incredibly busy and this way I would be able to speak to an actual doctor directly instead of a secretary or an office manager. Also there were more general surgeons around my area which meant that I had more of a variety to choose from. My final option, if nothing else works out, is to study under a pediatrician. That way I would at least be able to get a feel of the medical environment and working with kids and and parents in such a strenuous time, despite not being able to understand the surgical aspect of my career.

This entire experience was very trying on me because it was very demotivating to see rejection over and over again. However, I understand that it is because of the lack of pediatric surgeons in general that cause me to have such limited opportunities in my area. From a positive aspect, it did teach me to be persistent and to not give up in the face of rejection. On top of that, I began to understand the difficulty is that I would have as a pediatric surgeon in the future because it's such a small and growing field that fellowships and residency in the future may prove to be difficult.Overall I look forward to hopefully being able to schedule at least 1 interview by next week and continuing in this difficult but rewarding path.’