As the wheel of time turns

Facebook is a the modern day equivalent of Christmas cards and high school reunions balled into an instantaneous and all encompassing flood of reminders of all the things your friends are doing, accomplishing, and living... all the things that you as a neurosurgery resident aren't doing. I was browsing the updates section the other day, and saw that two of my friends got married to their respective significant others, another two got engaged, two others were having babies, another was roaming Thailand, and another just had the best sandwiches ever on a weekend getaway to the bay area.

Dude.

I'm not looking to engaged or married, or have any kids anytime soon. But man, I'd love to have a really good sandwich every now and then, and one not from the hospital cafeteria. I spend my 3 days off every month catching up on laundry and maintenance chores, craigslist shopping for a new couch, and reading for work. After all that, finding the energy to get that sandwich is pretty hard to come by. Dating someone would potentially help the situation, as someone on a normal work/sleep schedule is usually more motivated to push the obtunded significant other outside the door to get fresh air (and a sandwich). But there are obvious problems with dating someone as a neurosurgeon, especially a neurosurgery resident.

Why women shouldn't date neurosurgeons:
1. Our divorce rate is 200%. Yes, 200%. I think our department average is 150%, but rumor has it that neurosurgeons get divorced at least twice during their lives. Sure there's the initial glamor in the idea of dating/marrying "a neurosurgeon," but the long hours, missed baseball games, and never returned phone calls get old after a while. That and sharing a bed with someone whose pager goes off at least a couple times during the night when not on call, and anywhere from 0-25 times while on call... think about it.

2. Some start running their lives like they run the operating room. There are neurosurgeons that get so accustomed to being the commander and chief that they begin expecting others in the everyday world to attend to their every needs. While in the OR we have instruments handed to us by just asking, and we don't even look as it's being handed in order to not lose our orientation / focus in the operating field. Imagine how long it would fly if we just held out our hand and said "Salt. Pepper. Napkin." during breakfast without even looking up to acknowledge the giver. A drastic exaggeration of course, but I'm sure the subtleties bleed through somehow.

The list goes on, and just writing about it makes me sick with myself, or my future self rather, and thus I'll stop prematurely. But somewhere down that list is the fact that after work or call, they just won't have the energy to go out and find that awesome sandwich.