one of the things i love about being in medicine is how it can always take you out of the bubble of your own life and make you truly appreciate life. every patient has a story to tell, and one of the best parts of my job is being allowed into a patient's life to find out their story. a person's state of health is so intimately wrapped in the details of their personal life that we as the healthcare provider can't help but be sucked into that world. some docs don't really like that and prefer to compartmentalize things and know the bare minimum to do their job, but i kind of like getting the whole story.

anyway, most of the time we kind of gloss over against the shit we see every day as somewhat of a defense mechanism, but sometimes there are just those moments where you still get hit by the gravity of a patient's condition. recently i had a patient, pretty young (as in his early 50s) who was in a coma after suffering cardiac arrest in the field. he was in the ICU and eventually going to be formally pronounced brain dead and put up for organ donation. so my team saw the patient and after we left the room to discuss his case, his wife came to visit. i watched her out of the corner of my eye as she walked in to the room. she gave her husband a small kiss on the forehead, quietly rearranged his blankets, and took a seat to watch over him. just seeing her little gestures of affection and knowing she would never be able to have her husband back, that even as he was in that room breathing with his heart still beating, he was already as good as gone forever from her....those are the hard parts of the day...but also the parts that remind me to be so thankful that i really only have stupid bratty first world problems to deal with.

on a day-to-day basis it's easy to get swept up in the chaos and drama of our own lives and even become overwhelmed by it sometimes, but i think as long as you maintain a healthy amount of perspective, you can always find something, someone to be joyful about in your life.

first post

hey readers
i am joining the blogosphere. specifically, the blogosphere dedicated to the world of bisexual, gay, and closeted men out there. i am another one of these closet cases, and i've been following a few blogs over the past few months of young guys like me who are just uncertain about their sexuality, so choose to live a "double life"..straight on the outside, gay on the inside, like some horrible oreo cookie. most of the blogs i've followed sporadically are college guys or athletes dealing with these issues, which is cool to read because when i was in college while it was in the back of my mind, i definitely didn't think much about messing with guys and certainly never acted on it, but i am glad to know it's happening in college. now me being in my mid 20s, i definitely wish i had started to explore earlier because i feel like at this point i am royally fucked for waiting so long to explore my feelings for guy on guy action. so i am starting this blog to finally explore these issues a little further with my personal spin. i definitely didn't imagine there was this whole network of closeted guys with blogs, but it's very refreshing and i hope to contribute and maybe help out any guys in a similar situation to me with my writing.

anyway, a little about me--i lived the model life up until now. i did well in high school, was popular and well-known around school, the guy with all the answers you might say, then went off to a great college and had a lot of fun there. i then went on to medical school in a major american city. i am currently finishing my last year of school, and in a few months i will be out there practicing real medicine. yet, throughout all this, despite acting "straight" and pursuing women and such on the outside, i knew i had sexual feelings towards men still. i began experimenting with men throughout medical school, with no one, friends or family, aware of my activities except of course the men i've slept with. as you could imagine, managing medical school, my sexuality issues, and normal day-to-day life has been pretty tough, but hey, life is hard. at this point i would say i am probably 60% gay, 40% straight, but that of course is subject to change.

for my own privacy reasons, i will try not to go into too many personal details that could reveal who i am or where i am. yes i am that much of a closet case. but from my standpoint, i now have an emerging professional career to worry about, and i do not want to become known for being "that doc with the gay blog". and as much as i'd like to share some "House"-like stories from my work in the medical world, unfortunately there are some very real privacy laws regarding patient information, so i won't be able to share too many, although i will try to share some if they are non-specific and entertaining enough. honestly, when i was debating starting this blog, i was wondering if i should even reveal that i go to medical school, but i figure if i am going to be somewhat honest in this writing i needed to reveal a little bit of personal info. so i do promise to be as candid as possible, but cut me some slack.

ok, that's enough for my first post. i actually already have a second post written and ready to go, but it's a doozy so i will save that for tomorrow. i honestly have not written anything that long since college, so i will definitely scare off a few readers with the upcoming block of text. this is pretty long itself. anyway thanks for reading and hope you continue. besides the catharsis of finally getting out this hidden part of my life, i'm really hoping to get some good dialogue and feedback going from other users. it might help me figure out what the hell i'm doing!