A Round-less Weekend

This weekend consisted of 3 days in the great outdoors (with warm cabins to eat and sleep in comfortably) with a group of people that would not naturally congregate together in such close quarters.  It was a residency retreat, intended to gather the residents (1st years being the target audience) and attendings together for a mixing and mingling and I thought it was amazing.  Let me be slightly more specific.  It was intended to gather the resident and attending FAMILIES together.  And I still thought it was amazing.  We were one of just 3 non-intern families to join the party and afterwards I was saddened by what the other 11 families missed out on.  These types of retreats are rare (twice a year for us, which is not very often) and really important, I think, to being in a residency.  

 I've already talked about how I don't really know what goes on in a day in the life of my husband.  Which means at most gatherings, like the annual Christmas party, I have very little to say to a lot of the other residents and even less to the attendings and specialists that are there.  In 3 days surrounded by doctors, however, I heard 0 talk about medical things.  I don't even remember anyone asking what rotation anyone else was on.  I talked to attendings significant others, whom I had never met before, and we learned about each other and heard all about what the doctors are like outside of the clinic and hospital.  I found out one of the attendings is a cross country ski racer, so he gave us a little lesson on the basics of skiing (since that was the main form of entertainment where we were) and I now have a subject that I know a little bit about (thanks to his teaching) that we can talk about that isn't medicine.  

It felt like a great gathering of distant cousins who knew of each other and knew about each other to varying degrees, but spent three days getting to know each other and experienced things together, built memories and relationships that can grow in the future, though it may be 3 months before I see them again.  I'm not sure if all residencies are as interested in building a community within residents and attendings, but I think it's really important to think of everyone my husband works with and all their families as extended family.  They all know what residency life is like, but we all have lives outside of the hospital (yep, even interns have side hobbies, or at least stories of when they did have time for hobbies!) and those are the things that are important to learn so that we can be more of a family and feel more of that support and have more of those friendships (or acquaintances) to help us through and to make the time more enjoyable.  

It was different to be able to spend time with whole families, as opposed to hanging out with the spouse and children of a resident.  I got to get to know the people my husband works with and he got to know their families.  

Though we are resident's wives, I believe we need that connection to people who understand what we are going through and therefore don't need to talk about it.  Explaining to a friend or acquaintance what it means to be in a residency doesn't make them understand.  Not having to explain it or talk about it for a weekend was really great, to be supported by people who knew what our lives really were like because they've all done it and are seeing us go through it now, we can just be families or wives or children, not resident families or resident wives.  I momentarily forgot the craziness of residency life.  And it was great.

I love my husband...

...the great cross country skier

-Rachel C.