#medically inevitable

[nerdgirlnarrates]

Even though it's been months since I switched from neurosurgery to internal medicine, I still have a hard time not being angry about the training culture and particularly the sexism of neurosurgery. It wasn't the whole reason I switched, but truthfully it was a significant part of my decision.

I quickly got worn out by constantly being questioned over my family plans. Within minutes of meeting me, attendings and residents felt comfortable lecturing me on the difficulties of having children as a neurosurgeon. One attending even suggested I should ask my co-residents' permission before getting pregnant so as not to inconvenience them. I do not have children and have never indicated if I plan to have any. Truthfully, I do want children, but I would absolutely have foregone that to be a neurosurgeon. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than anything. But I was never asked: it was simply assumed that I would want to be a mother first. Purely because I'm a woman, my ambitions were constantly undermined, assumed to be lesser than those of my male peers. Women must want families, therefore women must be less committed. It was inconceivable that I might put my career first. It was impossible to disprove this assumption: what could I have done to demonstrate my commitment more than what I had already done by leading the interest group, taking a research year, doing a sub-I? My interest in neurosurgery would never be viewed the same way my male peers' was, no matter what I did. I would never be viewed as a neurosurgeon in the same way my male peers would be, because I, first and foremost, would be a mother. It turns out women don't even need to have children to be a mother: it is what you essentially are. You can't be allowed to pursue things that might interfere with your potential motherhood.

Furthermore, you are not trusted to know your own ambitions or what might interfere with your motherhood. I am an adult woman who has gone to medical school: I am well aware of what is required in reproduction, pregnancy, and residency, as much as one can be without experiencing it firsthand. And yet, it was always assumed that I had somehow shown up to a neurosurgery sub-I totally ignorant of the demands of the career and of pregnancy. I needed to be enlightened: always by men, often by childless men. Apparently, it was implausible that I could evaluate the situation on my own and come to a decision. I also couldn't be trusted to know what I wanted: if I said I wanted to be a neurosurgeon more than a mother, I was immediately reassured I could still have a family (an interesting flip from the dire warnings issued not five minutes earlier in the conversation). People could not understand my point, which was that I didn't care. I couldn't mean that, because women are fundamentally mothers. I needed to be guided back to my true role.

Because everyone was so confident in their sexist assumptions that I was less committed, I was not offered the same training, guidance, or opportunities as the men. I didn't have projects thrown my way, I didn't get check-ins or advice on my application process, I didn't get opportunities in the OR that my male peers got, I didn't get taught. I once went two whole days on my sub-I without anyone saying a word to me. I would come to work, avoid the senior resident I was warned hated trainees, figure out which OR to go to on my own, scrub in, watch a surgery in complete silence without even the opportunity to cut a knot, then move to the next surgery. How could I possibly become a surgeon in that environment? And this is all to say nothing of the rape jokes, the advice that the best way for a woman to match is to be as hot as possible, listening to my attending advise the male med students on how to get laid, etc.

At a certain point, it became clear it would be incredibly difficult for me to become a neurosurgeon. I wouldn't get research or leadership opportunities, I wouldn't get teaching or feedback, I wouldn't get mentorship, and I wouldn't get respect. I would have to fight tooth and nail for every single piece of my training, and the prospect was just exhausting. Especially when I also really enjoyed internal medicine, where absolutely none of this was happening and I even had attendings telling me I would be good at it (something that didn't happen in neurosurgery until I quit).

I've been told I should get over this, but I don't know how to. I don't know how to stop being mad about how thoroughly sidelined I was for being female. I don't know how to stop being bitter that my intelligence, commitment, and work ethic meant so much less because I'm a woman. I know I made the right decision to switch to internal medicine, and it probably would have been the right decision even if there weren't all these issues with the culture of neurosurgery, but I'm still so angry about how it happened.

#I would love to do something about this but I have no idea how to #even the faculty that I do really admire and respect seem entrenched in some of these attitudes #it's really hard to convince people that women aren't traitors in the making #simply because we might get pregnant one day and need time off #oh I also heard people shittalking a resident that was on maternity leave #and saying she wasn't serious about neurosurgery #so it's just inevitable #I'm not the only female student that feels this way btw #there's a reason no women have applied to nsgy from my school in years #sexism #neurosurgery #surgery #medicine #medical school #med school #med student #medblr #my content #my text posts

[beaft]

surgery anxieties aside, one thing i am looking forward to - aside from, y'know, not having tits - is the mandatory three weeks of recovery time. i can just see myself lying in bed with my little bullet journal in my lap like "well, i did exactly what i was supposed to do today, which was nothing. better get some sleep in preparation for another long day of doing nothing. i am a model patient."

#it's not that i'm lazy it's just that i constantly feel guilty for napping or enjoying my little hobbies when i could be working #so being medically forbidden from doing anything strenuous will really help with my inevitable 'Oh God I'm Not Doing Enough' thought spiral #(also i won't be doing NOTHING nothing. i plan to do some writing and drawing and so on. which is like... a fun nothing.)

[sonicattos]

shadow being a victim of medical experimentation and malpractice having to deal with constant modifications and changes in his body. trial and error. invasive procedures. auuughh head in hands. let him heal.

#tw abuse #medical abuse tw #saltcat text #sonic hcs #this isn’t entirely canon but it seems inevitable considering he is a lab experiment #shadow the hedgehog #sth

[savetheghost]

new tags courtesy of @/killing-machine

these are now a part of my anatomy

#cant wait for the inevitable point when paramedics are looking at my tags to find my medical shit and they have to read JACKASS #probably gonna just nod and be like yeah that sounds right #also yeah i wear a can opener 24/7 #thats how i get to the baked beeeeaaannnssssss

[yuck-pfaugh]

Camilla said, She turned you down. [...] I said to Camilla, Yes; and it was the best and kindest, most honourable thing Marta could have done for me. She didn't have to tell me in so many words what we both knew, that the relationship between cavalier and necromancer could so easily curdle into codependency ... a loss of self on both sides. An obsessive fusion of halves, not two complementary forces. [...] Camilla said, Captain Deuteros, why are you telling me this? I said, I wanted to let you know how lucky I was. She and I could have made that mistake together. It was such a near miss. I wouldn't hold it against anyone else, except that I would want them to know that such a thing is never determined, never inevitable, like all the things I told myself that night. If it had happened it would have been wrong and it would have hurt both of us. Camilla said, I can't comment.

— As Yet Unsent

"I am not saying this was our inevitable end ... I am saying we have found the best and truest and kindest thing we can do in this moment. Tell me no, and we'll go on as we have been ... and we'll go on unafraid ... but say yes, and we will make this end, and this beginning, together." Camilla shivered all over. Then she was at rest; she relaxed her head—the lines of her neck drooped like a flower—she raised it again. "Palamedes, yes," she said. "My whole life, yes. Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short and love is too long." He demanded: "Tell me how to do it, and I'll do it." Camilla said, "Go loud."

— Nona the Ninth

#FUCK YOU TAMSYN #the locked tomb #as yet unsent #nona the ninth #things that are hitting differently now #judith deuteros #camilla hect #palamedes sextus #ntn spoilers #nona spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #life is too short #love is too long #not their inevitable end #their CHOSEN end #somebody write a proper post about this please #i can't #due to currently requiring about as much medical support as poor jody there #in order to continue reading #ugh #i say again FUCK YOU TAMSYN

[brotherinsin]

Anyway I just think if the mercs got their hands on wii sports, scout would have inadvertently put a wii-mote through the tv playing baseball, sniper wouldve gotten scarily obsessed w beating every single tennis npc, engie would be teaching soldier how to golf and demo - red blooded Scotsman he is - would eventually have to step in and show them both up bc it would be causing him actual physical pain to sit off to the side and watch the absolute shambles.

Heavy's the one trying to get everyone to wear the wrist strap. Pyro's waiting for everyone to be done so they can just casually beat everyone's personal bests. Medic is doing that bowling challenge w the 100 pins but he's spending the entire time trying to do that cheat-y thing where u ride the guard rail to the end to make it explode.

#birdshitpost #scout tf2 #sniper tf2 #engineer tf2 #soldier tf2 #demoman tf2 #tf2 #heavy tf2 #I want u all to imagine sniper kitted out in sweatbands #I also want u all to imagine pyro showing up and just casually being better than everyone at all of them #which inevitably sends sniper into a spiral for a solid week #medic tf2 #pyro tf2

[yamameta-inc]

covid has really made me realize that most people don't have very good risk assessment or sense of scope, especially when it comes to statistics. part of it is definitely a knee-jerk aggressive response to the word even being said, but a lot of the arguments i hear seem predicated on some kind of belief that Low Percentage equals safe, because that's how people talk about things generally.

putting aside for one moment that the percentages are most likely a lot higher than they think, and that the risk of long-term complications after catching the virus is cumulative--i think people have sort of lost sight of how unprecedented covid actually is, because it's so easy to go back to normal life. covid is the first pandemic in the age of super fast and easy plane travel. covid is the first pandemic in the age of humanity's numbers being over 8 billion.

no one is claiming that your risk of catching covid after going out unmasked just once is high (with the exception of peak season during the holidays). in periods where transmission is low, that risk could in fact be negligible. but you aren't rolling that dice once. you're rolling it several times a day, every day. have you ever played a gacha game where the odds of pulling a SSR were 0.5%? did you ever pull one, or did you know anyone who did? how surprised would you be if you were able to pull one after pulling for 10 hours a day nonstop every day? would you really be particularly surprised?

despite all this, you may not catch covid more than once a year, or maybe even every two years. if you're looking at a time-frame of 5 years, that's pretty good, isn't it? the odds of developing severe, permanent complications from one or two covid infections isn't That high. except... why would we look at time-frames of 5 years? we're in the fifth year of the pandemic and this virus has evolved fast, so the research is obviously laser-focused on year to year changes and working with the timeline that it's got. but i don't know about you guys, i anticipate living about 60 more years. do you think, knowing what we know about cumulative damage, that catching covid 60 times will be completely fine for our bodies? hell, what do you think catching influenza 60 times would do? post-viral syndromes have existed long before covid.

vaccines will never be able to catch up to the rate of the virus' mutations if they keep being tailored to specific variants, and it complicates things for developing effective treatments too. this is because this is a virus that circulates every day among essentially 8 billion people. statistically, it's inevitable that a random mutation somewhere will be successful and then begin to circulate. the fact is that 0.5% (a completely arbitrary number) of the global population is a massive number of people. it's 40 million people, more than the population of many countries. but it can be that amount again and again, because there's nothing preventing continuous reinfection.

no other statistics deals with this kind of situation. you can't use that ordinary benchmark or logic to think about covid. because this is in fact an unprecedented situation. and when new situations arise, people have to adapt and change their behaviour. but that's something that humans really hate doing, unfortunately

#covid #it's not new to covid! but again. the scale is so much greater #the impact on the world is unfortunately inevitable--but it could be much less worse if we wanted it to be #unfortunately the third world will once again be bearing the brunt of this #as they're denied vaccines and medications #and as they continue to suffer poverty due to global imperialism #and you know? the best thing we could do is reduce transmission globally overall. because everything is connected now #less transmission in the US means less transmission in europe means less transmission in the world #but we apparently. just hate the idea of health so much

[naamahdarling]

.

#got a cardio appt in the morning that's too early to sleep before and too late not to fuck up my schedule so that's going to be fun #and im worried about it #I'm only mildly worried about there being something wrong #but i am worried about getting on the 'furher testing' railroad because i have NO spare energy for more medical shit right now #im dealing with like 3 other specialists right now AND therapy and I don't have a car #and also i just can't do more than 2 appts a month AND deal with prescription bullshit and the inevitable clinic fuckups #just that much messes me up #i do not need more #god help me if something IS wrong because I absolutely do not have the spoons or the ability to deal with interventions #or god save me '''''lifestyle changes'''''' which they offer NO material support for but for which I need material support #ugh #i want to get this checked out but it had better be nothing just like last time #im also having one of those evenings where my hands are so unsteady i can't do fine work at all #but at least i got myself into the studio for a while even if i wound up doing something else

[waspgrave]

Bless the ‘Drawing or writing smut to rediscovering creative’ pipeline. I’m actually drawing again all bc I wanted to write my wife 10k words of our dnd ocs banging

#prawn posts #LITERALLY just draw or write horni that is the trick with me #and be medicated probably. but I think hole is the actual fix idk #literally this is what happened when I started drawing again a few years ago (before the depression) #I wanted to draw horni art of my inquisitor #when the inevitable mood drop hits me someone PLEASE tell me to write or draw tiddy I am being so serious

[65810-29]

if i had a dollar for every time zachary quinto played a character named oliver, i’d have $3. $2 if we’re talking specifically about a character named oliver who also happens to be a doctor

#zachary quinto #zq #oliver thredson #ahs asylum #ahs murder house #nbc wolf #yea sure we don’t have any photos of him on the nbc wolf set yet. but how could they not put him in a lab coat #that’s like medical procedural 101 #if you’re sceptical about the commonality i’ve given oliver and wolf #i’d suggest you find out who’s gonna play wolf’s rival #spoiler alert! it’s teddy sears so homoerotic rivalry is inevitable #oliver was also just zach’s short film self-insert so. yea #forget about him constantly being type-casted as an antagonist. WHAT ABOUT ZACHARY QUINTO SAYS ‘OLIVER’??? #lamb of blog

[obsolescent]

After 4 years I unfortunately caught covid

#I knew it was inevitable due to my work but. #just worried about how my immune system is going to handle this #I did hear that it should be easier for me to get ahold of some medication for Covid since I have an autoimmune disorder #and I have zero clue on how I even got exposed too so it’s just. frustrating. #been talking myself through many many things today #o talking #o text

[ejacutastic]

broke another tooth apparently

#NOT the same as chipping a tooth #I mean like vertically cracked partially in half #honestly doesn't hurt that bad but the current filling in it is HUGE so I'm inevitably going to end up having a root canal #but really the crown prep is the worst fucking part #medical

[lith-myathar]

.

#really really hate how thoughtless and oblivious i can be to my own bad behavior #ill know something is important or that a shouldn't do a particular thing #but over time and assumptions and small acts of carelessnes shit just....fades and accumulates and one day #i look up and ive done something very stupid and hurt someone else #and i didn't feel it happening #my mind will take things and hide them from me is what it feels like. ill know they're there but it fades into the background noise #i am hard on the things in my life including people and relationships. and i am always so vulnerable to my own fuckin lmfao inattentivenes #this is why i struggle so much with the idea of ever having an intimate partner or children. it doesn't matter how much i care. #eventually and inevitably i do damage. #and i know consciously that people make mistakes and all you can do is try to course correct and make it right. but it's better #not to hurt anyone in the first place and i really don't know if i will ever be capable of that. #trying to convince myself this kind of shit is growing pains but man. man. i can't stop being what i am and it really #really feels sometimes like i am just destined to break and neglect #but then that ''im broken'' thing feels like trying to dodge around taking responsibility and improving. and i should be better than that. #but god how tf are you supposed to stop dissociating from the reality of what you're doing when you're. dissociated. #all i can ever think to do is isolate #*sigh* guys i think i might need to graduate to therapy with a trauma specialist #or adjust my medication. god. im so tired. #why is it so gd hard to be a normal decent person. it doesn't seem hard but then

[torchickentacos]

hot take but I think that those youtubers who 'expose' alleged mental illness or medical condition fakers are doing more harm for the rhetoric surrounding mental illness-and the people who really have it-than the people supposedly faking it to begin with.

#i mean neither are good but like #what they do is set a precedent of doubt whenever someone makes (mental) illness claims #it sets a precedent of finding and uncovering people who fake it and is just very bad imo. #inevitably i think this makes life ahrder for people who experience these conditions #especially for those who myabe have it but don't check off every symptom #and have to worry about maybe being seen as a faker since they don't have the msot extreme or visible case #idk. just rambling #worth noting this usually goes for things i do not have so i cannot in detail give opinions on specific diagnoses that this trend applies t #to* #however i do stand by this opinion as of right now #at worst. fakers spread misinformation and monetize/benefit from mental illness they do not have #at worst the people who expose this set a societal and online culture revolving around finding out who's REALLY got things #and who REALLY experiences it #which just. is icky. you aren't entitled to knowing anything about anyone's medical history. #plus imo if someone goes out of their way to fake something for attention then. there's probably a mentally ill brain doing it #like ok you don't have whatever you're claiming but like. mentally well people don't fake things like that usually #is this a cold take?????? like if i'm wrong then i AM open to other opinions and i'll change mine #but my initial opinion on this is it icks me out #inabber this is a pointed message. iirc he also made amber heard jokes #which like. i think no matter what side you're on with that #maybe. don't joke about domestic abuse. or alleged abuse if that's your stance on it. #like either way that's just shitty #ANYWAYS.

[a-dope-fiend]

ngl, spy x medic x scout's ma is becoming a new crackship of mine lol

#ever since i saw makani's art of medic flirting with her it was inevitable #also that one part of meet the spy where heavy and soldier are both interested in her pictures #basically all of the mercs want to fuck scout's mother #tf2

[gumheel]

well my fears have come to fruition. my therapist has told me to get assessed for autism

#on one hand. oh my gd thank you for recognizing i am struggling #for reasons toher than like. sucking #to talk frankly about being autistic is so great #however. ermmmmmm #i am not super hyped about like... making that an official process attached to my medical records #especially because like #admittedly i think i am like. low functioning to borrow terminology i wouldn't otherwise use #<- saying this for clarity's sake and because j don't know how else go talk about it #but with time i have realized i am kind of not capable of living or functioning alone #and that's something that's kind of come up in these sessions #and he can't diagnose that hence why he's having me talk to my psych about it #but the idea of explaining this in an assessmenr #i just worry about being opened up to like. psychiatric abuse #and if's sort of fucking heinous that i should have to worry at the same time as being like... #i don't want to have to juggle relief at the isea of accommodations and frustration at a loss of agency #but it feels inevitable #idk #ultimatey i guess for me i am so fucking burnt out and have so much trouble with wmotional regulation & basic cognition that like.. #i don't think i can like. continue and do something i want if it's still Like This #but the way like... people in positions of authority particularly in terms of health begin to trwat you #so deeply infantilizing #i don't know. #also ugh do you know how stupid it is to be like this. #<- OBLIGATORY INTERNALIZED ABLEISM/WHINING ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES DISCLAIMER BEING AUTISTIC IS AWESOME AND MAKES YOU COOL AND FUNNY AND HOT #🥲 #call me!