I have a lot of thoughts in my mind but what interests me most is that most of the time amidst all of my random thoughts I came to think about pain fellowship. Yes, in the midst of having cluttered thoughts there goes my thoughts about having pain medicine fellowship- the only thing that makes my not so organized thinking quite definite and organized.

When I am still under anesthesia training, I am interested in a lot of things- critical care, cardiac, pain, research, and simulation. All the road less traveled sub-specialties of my profession. I seriously wanted to pursue further career in these sub-specialties. Even during my clinical anesthesia fellowship, I am so perplexed if I should settle into one subspecialty since I probably won’t be able to take all of these besides I am not that young anymore. However, despite all the thinking I never reached a conclusion… Not until recently, when almost all my thoughts end up with pain medicine.

I had the privilege to choose some of my rotations during my clinical anesthesia fellowship and I was really lucky that they granted my wish to have many pain rotations. During those rotations, I seriously get excited whenever I can get a chance to see my consultants do interventional pain and regional anesthesia procedures. I swear, those were one of the highlights of my pain exposure. I have never seen one during my anesthesia training since our pain rotations mostly revolve in the pain clinic - medically managing patients but no procedures are done. Our medications used were also limited mostly is morphine.

I wanted to rant and tell all of this to one of my fellowship consultants, but I am hesitant to do so. One of my fellowship consultants told me before that I overthink and that is what’s happening right now so I ended up typing all of what’s in my head instead of messaging my consultant.

The idea of doing a pain fellowship - how, where, and when will I do it is still so unclear but I seriously want more clarity of thoughts and direction regarding my career path right now. 

Having these thoughts at 34 is really so frustrating.