What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

This is the true story of 1 NY/NJ raised surgical intern, picked to live in Ohio and learn to operate, be a real doctor, have a balanced life and stay connected with my wonderfully insane family and friends.

I figured I would pay homage to the first reality television show (The Real World, for those youngsters out there) that birthed the very questionable reality TV fare we have available nowadays. Because much like the way watching the Real Housewives of NJ makes you feel a whole lot better about your family and their craziness, my job makes me think my life outside the hospital is so normal it borders on banality.

As a little introduction, I am the lower middle child in a wonderfully interesting family made up of 2 caucasian parents, 3 adopted Korean children and me, the biological one, thrown in the middle (number 3 of 4). My oldest brother, Danny, found a wonderful woman who would not only up with us, but actually legally bound herself to the Ferrauiola family, Janet. They just had the most adorable little boy named Duncan, who is the love of my life and the cutest f-ing kid on the planet. Aside from my awesomely crazy family, I made the jump from fashion to medicine about 6 years ago, I'll tell you the whole story at some point.

Right now I have landed in Dayton, Ohio for my 5 year general surgery residency. I'm loving the program, my experience thus far and the people, though being far away from all my family and friends is painful at best and brutally lonely at worst. My good friend who is doing his surgery residency in Connecticut has a blog and I figured I would copy his idea, because honestly, you cannot make this stuff up. I have the unique pleasure of starting on the trauma night team at a level 1 trauma center. My hours are 6pm-7am 6 nights a week. The team was made up of me (a newly birthed doctor), a 4th year resident and a PA who may or may not leave at 3am until God smiled on us and gave us a wonderful 3rd year ER resident this past weekend, so now there are 4 of us to take care of the seemingly 1,000 patients we are taking care of in some form on the floors and all the traumas that come in over night. Not exactly the easing in to doctorhood I had hoped for. These will be my musings from "the field" peppered with fun Ferrauiola family stories.

I also chose the Charles Bukowski quote for this post because I find it to be the mantra I utter most often to myself. We all can prepare and think we know what to expect and how to handle any number of things that come our way, but when it comes down to it, no matter what you know, who you know, or what you can do, "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire".

*PS: all patient stories will be in line with HIPAA rules and regulations, I'm not trying to get my butt or my program's butt fined.