New Years Resolutions

As you can see, mine included blogging again. Fortunately, I'm in a brief research hiatus from surgical residency, so for the next year or so, I actually have some free time. Today I was inspired to start by the Huffington Post of all things, and with good news!

I realized that one of the biggest obstacles to blogging while being a resident was how difficult it is to read outside of work when you're being overworked. After a 14 or 16 hour day, or 30 hour call, the last thing I wanted to do was do more analysis of information, make more decisions, or think at all. I read a lot of Terry Pratchett, not so much the New York Times. Now with free time, and more importantly, free brain time, I can read scientific journals again (although now Archives of Surgery is in the mix) and newspapers, and even blogs without the nagging feeling I should be sleeping or tomorrow will suck. Since starting research about 6 months ago I've read (or listened to) about 60 books, and actually feel like I'm having an interesting thought or two again. Like, how will I ever go back to being in the OR again when research time is so freaking great? The answer: surgery is even more awesome, but the cost of that awesomeness is Pain. Yes, the capital P is intentional.

More to follow.