"My program" died Friday. It hit me pretty hard. The program was called the Fellows Symposia - Fellows have finished med school and opt in for another 2-4 years to specialize in a particular area of medicine.

This was the "Movie Stars of Medicine" program I worked on at GSK. It was two days of solid education for fellows in pulmonary or critical care training programs and one fellow from every training program in the country was able to come. GSK turned it over to the ATS a few years ago, so when I came to the ATS - I got it back!

So much fun.

No secret that the regulatory environment has changed for medical education - and transparency of where the money to pay for that education comes from.

We submitted the grant for the 2009 program back in September. And revised it in October. And totally built a new program in November. And waited.

We heard on Friday - grant request denied. No program anymore. Which is really sad because this would have been its 18th year and the fellows all look forward to it.

It's hard to see a program like this die. Not fatal once you get over the initial shock waves, but hard nonetheless. Now to build something new for 2010 for the fellows - that could be the fun part.

Vacations

Everyone loves vacations. They wait for them, plan for them, dream of them. Even me - I can be heard to mutter as I race from meeting to meeting "Damn, I need a vacation".

But I can say after two weeks of not working that I am officially bored out of my skull. I read a whole book today. Scarpetta. 800+ pages. Was it good? Yup. But I finished it and thought - "Crap. Now what am I gonna do?"

Do I have things I can be doing? No question. Tax time is coming, I have a very cool new scanner I need to learn. I still have to finish Zak's sweater. I recipies to copy into the blank recipie book I bought for Eileen. The Christmas tree needs to come down and be stored. I haven't scrapped in over a year, and have not printed a picture to update my picture frames since well before I moved here.

Luckily, my clothes closet is still fabulous. I have done all my laundry. I changed the sheets on my bed. I've cooked so much food that the freezer (such as it is) is filled to capacity. And yet, I can not seem to get motivated to do anything. Really.

I don't know why I am missing work, but I think it's really a combination of human interaction and purpose. I've always worked best under pressure - maybe I need the pressure to get stuff done. I knit for three days solid before Christmas and didn't QUITE get the last sweater done...now I won't even pick it up to do the last few rows and sew the thing together.

Really nothing to complain about. All my friends with kids and spouses would LOVE to have a week with nothing to do, no deadlines, no pressure. Want to stay in jammies all day and watch tv? Nothing stopping you. But I've had enough. Time to get back to my real life.

New Eyes

Meg and I just talked, and she reminded me that I have not written in my blog (on my blog? for my blog?) in over three months. She's right, it's been months.

Remember when Doogie Howser, MD closed every episode by typing into his computer? This was, undoubtably, the first blog. First computerized diary...I have always liked the concept of writing to clarify my thoughts and feelings. Cheaper than therapy (believe me, I have the bills to prove it). As a matter of fact, when I moved I found a BOX of old journals. All the way back to the grade school diaries with the cheap locks. Most of them have entries every day for a few weeks, only to have empty pages for a few months when they are picked up again.

When I look back on these writings, I am usually in some crisis. A failed relationship that is causing me pain, money problems, a job that is slowly killing me, questions about God and my place in this world, pressure from well-meaning people who want me to be happy but only remind me of my shortcomings. I head to Barnes and Noble, find some blank book that appeals to me and pour into it.

After a while, I stop writing. I disconnect. I can't solve it, I can't fix it, I can't adapt. So I disconnect. Sadly, this tends to be my motus operandi. Fake it until you make it, fiddle-dee-dee. I'll think about it tomorrow.

The truth is, it kind of makes me sad that I still struggle with some of the same issues I wrote so desperately about years ago. And yet, I always write again.

Marcel Proust said "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes". Maybe that's my hope for 2009. New Eyes.