Ted Audio Collective

My name is Vivek and I am a physician by training, but most importantly I'm a dad of two toddlers.

When I was going through my residency training after medical school, we were told when we

started the program that we should in fact call our family and close friends and tell them

that they probably wouldn't be hearing from us for a long time. We were told that dealing

with life and death situations, excruciating illness and incredibly delicate and difficult

family circumstances would be incredibly taxing.

And so with this warning, you know, in mind I entered my residency training expecting

it to be an extraordinarily difficult three years. I was training with 70-some odd fellow

recent graduates who came to work each day almost without exception with the mindset

of how we could all help each other out. I've came to work each day feeling like I was

coming to work with friends. Fast forward just three years. When I started a full-time

job, that community broke apart and dispersed. And instead I was in the more sterile culture

of traditional medicine with a group of people I didn't really know that well. And a group

of people who had lives well outside the hospital. And I remember going to work at times feeling

like there was so much to figure out and not always show who I could be open with about

the fact that I didn't know certain things or that I was uncertain about how to proceed

with the patient. I wasn't sure that I could be vulnerable and open with people. And that

felt quite lonely. And I struggled with that until one particular moment a couple of

years in when I ended up sick as I think I've ever been. And it was in that during those

five days that I just realized how lonely the last couple of years had been. Our relationships

are what catch us when we fall down. And I realized in that moment lying on my couch

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