Letter to Grandpa

July 5, 2014

Dear Grandpa, 

Happy birthday! I am thinking of you and hoping that you're doing well. I miss you very much. 

I have been very busy with rotations. For the past four weeks, I have been doing internal medicine at a small suburban hospital about a 30 minute drive from my house. It was a really nice place and I got along very well with the team that I worked with. I've been learning so much! Since the first day I started, they were willing to give me a lot of responsibility. I was assigned my own patients, which meant that I would be the first person from the team to see them when they arrived at the hospital, I would get to hear their story and figure out what was going, and I would present that information to the rest of the team. I would be the person that went in and checked up on the patient every morning. It was a lot like being a real doctor, which was really cool. I usually worked from 7am to about 4pm for six days a week - a lot of work, but I loved it!

Now, for the next four weeks, I am still doing internal medicine, but I am doing it at Boston Medical Center, which is a very busy urban hospital. It was a lot more relaxed at the old hospital, and the teams were smaller so I got to spend much more time talking to my superiors and learning from them. At BMC, everyone is always so busy, and the teams are so large that I don't get much time to ask questions or sit down and having learning sessions. They're also not as willing to give us full responsibility for our patients, which is a little disappointing. I just want to be able to do more and learn more! Unfortunately, this hospital is just not as conducive to doing that. 

After internal medicine, I will be doing surgery. I am assigned to the Veterans Affairs hospital for most of my surgical rotation, which is a hospital that takes care of veterans and their families only. I've heard from many people that this is a great hospital to learn at, so I'm very happy about that. 

The unfortunate thing is that I have not been able to enjoy my summer that much. I work all day, and then I have to be in bed by about 9:00 every night in order to get enough sleep for the next day. Also, after work, I have to come home to study because we have a test at the end of every rotation, and it's important that we do well on that test. It seems like I am ALWAYS studying for tests these days! Plus, I only get one day off every week, which does not leave much time to have fun. 

I have been trying my best. I usually see Trey on the days that I have off, and we have gone to the beach several times and we have plans to go to Vermont in a couple of weeks. The weather here has been very nice, so we try to take advantage of it when we can. I don't remember if I told you already, but Trey graduated with high honors and got a very good job in the Boston area, so he's been working a lot as well. He is doing chemistry for an oil company. 

My birthday just passed recently, and I had a very nice dinner with 10 of my closest friends here in Boston. My medical school friends were there, my college friends were there, and then Trey's friends were all there, so it was pretty much everybody that I love in Boston - it was very heartwarming. Trey and I spend our free time seeing each other, but at the same time, we make sure to stay very social. I like his friends a lot and he also likes my friends, so it's very easy to make plans with all sorts of people and have something going on at all times! I am recently really realizing how lucky I am to have that be the case, because some of my close friends from high school are now living in places where they don't know too many people, and it sounds like a struggle not to be able to be close to the people that you know and love. 

So despite having to work 9 hours a day and having to study afterwards, I am still definitely finding a way to enjoy life and to be very happy. And that is the most important thing, isn't it? Finding a way to be happy in all situations, and holding on to the things that make you happy. 

I hope that you are finding a way to be happy too. I miss you, and I am always thinking about you.  I will always remember how hard you tried to bring a very happy and special childhood to me...

Love,

A Bao