My friend did a cool thing...
- Jeanette Thomas
- Apr 25
- 2 min read
Bear with me, there is a purpose to my rambling. And the link isn't scary. Burnout is.
As a general rule, I don't do horror movies or shows. I have trouble turning off my imagination when I turn off the lights. When I was 13, a Jason movie from a slumber party kept me up every night, reading until dawn. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was a couple being harpooned on a bed. If I laid on my stomach, I would be like the one on top who didn't see it coming. Worse was turning to my back, because I would picture the fear on her face as she saw the hockey mask about to stab them. My eyes flew open about every 3 minutes, until I gave up, turned on the light and read. All. summer. long.
In college, I watched Silence of the Lambs, along with everyone else. How could I not? It won awards. It "wasn't that scary". For months, as I was about to fall asleep, I heard the line about Lecter's encounter with a nurse and his pulse not rising above 85 "even when he ate her tongue." Gah. Cue my tachycardia and insomnia.
Against my better judgement, the kids have talked us into watching The Last of Us. It's not a spoiler to say that it's a fungal pandemic. The hyphae resemble bean sprouts, and it's a good thing I never really liked them, because I will never eat them again. I learned to duck for cover from the scenes with the Infected (never ever trust your children when they say "it's not really that bad" or "there's a couple jump scares"). I can only watch during daylight hours, and only with my wife so that she can tell me when to remove my hoodie from my eyes.
But really, you know what they don't have in the zombie apocalypse? meetings. EMR's. RVU's. coding and billing and satisfaction surveys. The things that draw physicians away from caring for people. Nobody went to medical school because they liked to find out how to maximize reimbursement and rules for visits and services--even in non-profit medical systems. Yes, some of it is necessary to make the sausages. Yes, someone has to step up and take turns being the leader with the bad news about more paperwork on your plate. More, more, more, for the same compensation or less. Doctors, nurses, all of us. When people ask if I miss practice, I do not miss that side of it. These things that are not patient care are what drive good people to leave medicine.
Full disclosure: I have not taken the course above. Maybe I should, as we could all use more meditation than medication for our angst, whether we are retired or not. And there's certainly plenty of angst going around. ("Angst" would be a great Wordle guess...)
Coming in the next few weeks, information on other cool things my talented friends have been up to, including BOOKS! And please remember that nobody in their right mind would ask me or pay me to endorse their project.
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