Standing Up

There have been times during my life I've tried to stand up.  Where I've tried to lead and failed.  I have to admit I'm not the best orator and I'm not the most charismatic, so getting slapped down is what I've come to expect when I try to make changes.  With the media pumping me full of pessimism, the government showing me what not to do, and the masses showing me how to eat the crap shoveled to them; I've slowly but surely learned to keep my head down and do what's best for me and mine, forget the rest.  But, we are all connected, and despite my pessimism, maybe one person can make a difference, maybe I can make a difference.  I'm scared to try, to stand up among so many and to risk failing so publicly, yet maybe it's this fear that has put us as a nation and a global economy where we are today.  Maybe that fear pushes us to selfishness, then to greed, then to evil.  Maybe when given the choice to put my head down and look after myself, I should hold my head up and look out for everyone else a little more often...even if I fail, even if they laugh.  I was working on inpatient this morning for the first time in months, perusing vital signs I glanced a blood pressures of a patient of mine.  My system was running and it was catching hypertension in my patients.  No one knows it was me that changed that.  Years from now they will be catching patients with kidney and heart problems, where before they might have slipped through the cracks.  As a resident you do what any doctor can do, you don't feel like you're making a difference.  If a kid is dehydrated, give him IV fluids...anyone can figure that kind of stuff out, if I wasn't there to write the order someone else would be.  But, today I did what few in my program have done.  When I leave that hospital, I will still be saving lives there, I will still be making a difference in children who come there.  My effect will outlast me.  I won't get any medal for this, maybe a pat on the back from the people who knew I was working on it, but I gained something greater than that.  It restored my faith that one person really can change the system, that I can change the system, and that I need to keep trying to change the system.  Maybe I can't speak well, but maybe my actions can speak for me. 

Newbie Doc