Precious Nephro Moments

There are times in one's life when the moments are so precious that I just wish I could crystallise them, freeze-frame them into every DNA of my being and keep them forever.

Well, I can't so I guess the next best thing will be to write about them.

Tonight, we just concluded the 2018 Philippine Society of Nephrology Convention.  What used to be an event that filled me with such dread and sucked all the energy out of me evolved throughout the last eight years.

This year, 2018,  I saw it differently.  It was no longer a task to be done, an event to be attended, or groups of mentors to greet and to give tribute to so that they would know of your involvement or presence.  It was no longer a to list of all the singing, dancing performing because it was expected of you and you had to deliver or else shame would befall your chapter or your training institution.

I suppose how I view the convention now also reflected the change I saw in me.

 I now see the convention as a means to meet and greet new friends, reunite with the old, and tell stories in a setting where there is optimum comfort, no judgement (okay fine, meron, but we don't judge the judgement anyway!).  It is a time to genuinely get in touch with and connect with the people who have been like little lego blocks that contributed to the person that I am today.

I now see the convention as an outlet of the creativity and talent that would otherwise remain dormant  when one is caught up in treating the patients.  Sometimes, in the everyday world of medicine, the doctor tends to forget that he or she is also a person with creative juices flowing within.  This creativity is squelched, or becomes dormant because of the need to be more logical and scientific in treating the patients.  Because of the brief pause from clinical practice and the milieu of frustrated creativity or the pressure from friends, the various outlets like singing, dancing, photography, drawing, story telling comes out.  Not because of necessity.  But because of love.  One is not limited to becoming a doctor.  Being a doctor is just a part of the living, breathing persons we are.  We are not limited to the science.  We are science and art in one.

I now see the convention as time standing still to be spent with family members.  Families at buffet breakfasts.  Families with little kids swimming in the hotel pool.  Families watching fellowship nights, watching their mothers model, cheering their fathers on for presidencies that were done, sons watching their mothers handle the logistics.

I now see the convention as an avenue for learning.  This is true during the sessions, when one listens to the speakers, but also holds true for the various catch-ups, exchange of stories and experiences about patients, management and everything in between.

I now see the convention as a time to say thank you to all the people who have influenced us to change and grow, to figure out what is important, to redirect our path to align with our every changing priorities.  It is also an opportunity to look back at what we were, appreciate it, and move on to what we will be.

Thank you colleagues and friends for the wonderful convention this year.  I love being a nephrologist.