The future

I get more and more depressed when I log on to Facebook each day. Everybody I know seems to be going to weddings or actually getting hitched. Some part of me is a bit miffed for not being invited but another part of me knows I don't the person that well to get invited. I probably wouldn't attend the wedding banquet anyway. I don't like weddings. They are extraordinary large lavish affairs with a real lack of intimacy for the guests. If I get invited to a wedding, roughly 90% of the guests I wouldn't want anything to do with and I don't want to talk about medicine all the time with my fellow doctor peers.

I'm more saddened about my current marital status. When I was sane and not despondent about everything in life, I wouldn't have cared if I remained single for the rest of my life. It is not the end of the world if you stay a bachelor for the rest of your days on this Earth. Now that feeling for companionship and yearing for human relationship is eating at my soul like a dog gnawing on a bone. Soon or later there is going to be nothing left and I dread to think what I will do then, such as marry the first woman I see.

People I know are also studying for professional examinations and undergoing endless preparation for interviews. I'm at the stage in my internship when I have to decide what specialty I want to continue with for the rest of my career. Currently no specialty holds a special place in my heart which can interest me, which makes me want to be a doctor.

At this moment in time, it is a process of elimination for me...

• Radiology: Out of the picture (both metaphorically & literally). I know nothing about anatomy and I've already peeved off half the radiology department at one hospital, seriously affected my job prospects.
• Surgery: Not bad but I don't think I can handle the politics and the male personalities. You need a lot of self-confidence, bordering on arrogance, and I don't think I have guts to perform the job.
• Ophthalmology: Again, no interest.
  
• O&G: Pregnant woman? I still want to stay heterosexual, so no thank you.
  
• Paediatrics. Definitely not. The prospect of dealing with screaming kids and anxious parents is not one which entices me.
  
• Family Medicine: Being treated like shit for the first two years doesn't entice me. I've heard stories about family medicine trainees being treated like secondary house officers in various localities and I don't think I can put up with that.
• Anaesthesiology: At one point I wanted to do this job but for some reason I lost interest. Maybe it is the people involved in the job.
• A&E: I don't think I have the mind to work fast enough for Casualty.
• Microbiology & Pathology: Don't think I can consider a whole life of staring down microscopes.

Which leaves me with two options: Orthopaedics & Medicine, which happen to be my last two rotations of my internship. I would like to do orthopaedics, since I have an interest in sports medicine but I know nothing about orthopaedics, anatomy or neurology. It will be more difficult to impress in Medicine since the interviews will have already taken place when I do my rotation.

But committing my life for another six years doesn't entice me at all. The alternative is going private, which I hate since I don't have the experience or the knowledge and I hate to be a mercenary.

I really don't know about my future... and some part of me doesn't care enough to do something about it.