Under the Radar

Have you ever felt inexplicably mundane in your emotions? Or rather, to put it more simply, alone in feeling them?

Like the galaxy of souls you share this existence with don't shine in quite the same way that you do? Like your wavelengths are incompatible, imperceivable, and even invisible?

I feel this. All. The. Time.

So overwhelmingly much so that the second guessing cuts me like holes in swiss cheese. When I do not feel safe to be myself in front of certain individuals, I dissect these pieces of myself and hide them in some faraway dresser drawer. I cut the margins with my imaginary scalpel and stick the malignancy somewhere just out of reach.

I do work in surgery after all, where we are experts in such things.

When I'm at work, in an unbalanced environment where opinions can mean deliberately missed opportunities and retaliation, I hide. I switch on the robotic part of me, like some sort of assistive artificial intelligence.

You see.. we in medicine pride ourselves in ethics, but revenge is something in which we are unfortunately well versed. We use such turns of phrase as "eating our young", and I wish i could tell you that this is an exaggeration.

It's not.

We have cases like RaDonda Vaught who are criminalized and scrutinized and.. jailed. There are those of us who feign infallibility and turn their noses up at such events. But then, there are those of us who are human, who remember the To Err is Human movement not so long ago. All of the progress we were starting to make was instantly tarnished, going up in smoke and erased from history and for what? To have a convenient scapegoat and martyr.

So here I am, hiding and doing my best. Quiet; but attentive and all other applicable comparisons.

I love science and the theoretical nature of my profession. It is, after all, why I have pursued it.

But, as most things are in modern society (especially in the United States), capitalism and corporate greed have preyed on the empathy and good nature of medicine. It has monetized it, wrung it up by it's very throat, and transfused every exploit imaginable.

And nobody talks about it. Ever.

I have an appicable example. When I am inputting surgical products, I am able to see the original cost of a product as well as the markup value that the hospital has assigned to it. Every single product is marked up at least 100%, with implants costing hundreds of dollars more than they cost to manufacture.

It breaks my heart, as I was once an uninsured individual needing surgery in the very same operating room that I now work in.

I am consistently in an environment that expects nothing less than absolute perfection, punishment of anything less, and individuals keen on (what we call) "eating" others.

Perhaps my jaded perspective will change, and it often does with the occasional rewarding case.

But I simply do not fit in, and am afraid to.

So here's to happily keeping my hopes up high and my head down low.