Multiple facets

Just last week I was musing at the fact that in my previous life as a general internist, I used write about spiritually elevated things such as life, death, humanitarianism in the hospital, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and now, am reduced to describing bowel movements in detail. Let's just say, the Bristol scale? We take it seriously! I thought, GI... we're backdoor plumbers. No life or death here, just bloating and nausea.

Today, though, I started on a serious consult service. That means, I'm almost like an actual doctor now; I walk down the hall with a stethoscope around my neck, and my white coat billowing behind me; I see patients, record my impression and create plans.

It's a liver service: we take care of people with end stage liver disease.

And once I see a cachectic, orange, tremulous being, bearing little resemblance to the human they once were, life and death fall back into the picture.

Not to sound like I'm at an interview, but... Lots of layers in GI, lots of organs, and lots of things to figure out...

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