suprised by:
how great i feel when i sleep 8 1/2 hrs! im honestly shocked by what a difference it makes in my reaction, my attention to things.

touched by:
we did a home visit exercise today- myself and two other residents visited the home of another faculty doc's patient. she was super nice, very open, reasonably fucked up. family affected by alcoholism/domestic violence in multiple generations, but also many family members doing awesomeawesome. one thing i love about medicine is the naked self of a patient, alone in a sterile room, discussing their deepest values, darkest fears, brightest dreams. hanging out with a 60y/o lady in her little apartment, with doilies and tons of famliy pictures and a turtle and fish and a cat, to see where she keeps her meds (not far from the cat's), to see the stairs she climbs (4 flights) to come and go from home... very touching, very real.

inspired by:
a specific fellow 'tern, who is gonna be a great ally against systematic injustice, a fact (or theory) which hit me hard while we did this sort of "mindfulness in medicine" exercise where we described our innermost goals as physicians, making our own hippocratic oaths. as you can imagine, most people didn't think much about it, and most "answers" were generic, good-natured, and absolutely not-challenging-status-quo, like "i hope to care for my patients to the best of my abilities". not that they were insincere... but one of my fellow interns... i forgot what she said/wrote, but it made me realize that she's on the level (CHALLENGE! REFORM! HULK ANGRY!!!), recognizing oppression in it's most systematic forms. but, to be honest, i've been pretty inspired by the program in general this past month: partly awesome speakers, awesome topics, and awesomeawesome faculty. but, when i imagine the average intern across the nation, even considering just family med interns... i'm with some amazing people! so surprising and reassuring that there are others that think like this... i was also inspired by another intern who i had discounted as being not really on the level, though a nice/caring/capable person anyway. but, as we discussed our "oaths" afterward, she remarked that she was so happy to be in a program where her colleagues were "good at the politics of medicine", and that it helps her recognize that the politics in medicine are important for her to learn more about. how inspiring is that!!!