You Find Out Who’s With You When It Gets Hard
The greatest challenges in life don’t just change you. They reveal who stands beside you.
It’s been years since I finished training, but I’m still in a group chat with my friends from residency. It’s where we share our successes, life events, and challenges. It’s also where I turn when I have questions about a case I haven’t done in a while, or want fresh ideas on how to use certain medications.
Spaces like this group chat are vital in high-stakes careers. When things are hard, the best way to decompress is to laugh about it with someone who has experienced it with you.
This is a common theme in many walks of life: challenges forge stronger bonds. We all have to endure difficult seasons. Be it loss, disease, financial setbacks, or demanding situations in the workplace; hard times are inevitable.
The people who endure it with you understand it in a way no one else can.
They, too, were changed by the catalyst of your own inner journey. You may come away with your own insights and strengths, but the process that forged them was the same.
We need those people in our lives. I certainly did as a resident. Even now, I deeply value those friendships.
Friendships Forged By Hard Times
In most residencies, you work side-by-side with your colleagues. They’re next to you in the call room to bounce ideas off of, or even to blow off steam. You might be the intern in the ICU overnight, but your senior resident isn’t far off.
It’s different in anesthesia. As residents, we saw each other for lectures. We worked in pairs during our first month. We did workshops and simulations as a team. But for the majority of our training, we spent our days in the OR solo.
The End of Block Parties
Our blocks, or clinical rotations, were a month long, and we marked each completion with a happy hour at a local bar or restaurant in Baltimore.
That month could subjectively expand or contract based on the rotation. Strange, how a month in the ICU taking 28-hour call every third day could feel like an eternity; while a rotation doing nerve blocks or labor epidurals could go by in the blink of an eye. Talk about relativity.
After a few drinks, shared stories, and laughter, it felt like the rotation had been boxed and sent down the river. It was another month down on the way to finishing residency. To leaving behind years of self-inflicted indentured servitude. Hallelujah.
It was also an important part of processing challenges. Ever notice how much better you feel when you get something off your chest?
Seeing the glimmer of understanding in someone else’s eyes validates what you’ve been through. It can help bring peace to a mind full of confusion or self-judgment.
COVID Took Away A Lot Of What Held Us Together
The end-of-block parties disappeared. Casual conversations faded. Shared spaces to decompress were reduced to Zoom calls.
We were scattered. Masked. Repurposed.
Over the course of a year, I forgot what my colleagues looked like without masks.
In a strange way, it clarified everything. It made it obvious who you could still reach, even when everything else felt distant.
When we finally returned to normal life, seeing my friends from work felt like a celebration. I had missed their presence in a way that felt like mourning.
What Hard Times Reveal
It doesn’t take a global catastrophe to need people in your corner.
Anyone can show up when life is going well. When the cases are smooth. When there’s something to celebrate.
But the people who sit with you in the uncertainty…
who answer your call after a brutal day…
who understand the weight of a decision you had to make without needing an explanation…
Those are your people.
Hard times don’t just change you.
They make it obvious who’s standing beside you.
Subscriptions are free, and come with weekly reflections from my side of the drapes. We’ll reflect on the various parts of the human experience that are brought to light by these intense, vulnerable, and life-changing moments. If you’ve experienced hardship or navigated the medical field, you’ll find something here that resonates.
Great read. "Those parties were cathartic to say the least. After a few drinks, shared stories, and laughter, it felt like the month, good, bad, or ugly, had been boxed and sent down the river." I think Americans need to begin this practice.
Thank you for this, I think a sense of community and people showing up for one another is vital. I think this Substack community is great for that as well. There are people sharing authentic real life stories, it also allows us to flex our empathy muscles. :)