It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I started fellowship here in Iowa City.  At times, I think that the year passed by very quickly.  But there are plenty of other times when I feel like these 364 days have just dragged on and on.

Regardless, it has been a tumultous year, characterized by momentous changes in both my personal life and professional life.

For one, I started a new fellowship.  In the very near future, I will have a synopsis about my experiences as a first year Rheumatology and Allergy/Immunology fellow (in a different forum – stay tuned).   While Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology are absolutely fascinating fields, both have very steep learning curves.  I’ve tried my best to be surefooted, but have faced several challenges that have conspired to throw me off balance and straight off the curve.

Secondly, the majority of last year was spent in preparations for my wedding (photos to come soon).  Even when the work wasn’t too onerous, the mental burden of coordinating this and that weighed heavily.  Fortunately, the wedding went off without any major hitches, and we enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon in sunny Portugal soon thereafter.

Because of these three major stressors (the move, the fellowships, the wedding), I simply have had to cut back on things that I would like to do, such as writing.

Since medical school, writing has been a high priority of mine.  It came at first as a desperate desire to differentiate myself from the rest of the herd of international medical graduates, but soon became a source of my identity.  For the majority of residency and medical school, I had been able to churn out an article (usually a case report or essay) every two to three months.  Nowadays, my output has been considerably less, which is an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of a busier schedule

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg – there have been plenty of other highpoints (e.g. winning the ACR knowledge bowl, welcoming several new members into our family, getting published in a few higher profile medical journals) and lowpoints (mostly the unending drudgery of everyday work) that probably deserve posts of their own in the near future.

We will see what the next year brings.  I’m confident there will be more changes, more excitement, and even more reasons to celebrate the passing of another academic year.