New Horizons

Feb 20 will mark the four month mark until I am finished with residency and become an Oral Maxillofacial Surgeon. Yesterday I had my last patient work-up for orthognathic (corrective jaw surgery) surgery. In a few short weeks I will be finished with my last month as "Clinic Chief," with only one month of "Trauma Chief" left for the rest of my residency. I am checking off the boxes in my to-do list before the end of residency, and as the checks are adding up, the list is getting shorter. So, life is pretty good.

But (oh the ever present but!) I do have a lot on my mind. I had hoped to be well settled into my plans for "next year" (which really just means my plans for after June 20, 2014, which as I said, is coming up!) by now. Instead, I am still weighing different options and mostly just waiting on additional information before I can make some decisions. I know I still have some time, but these things take time (I've been learning) and a lot of that doesn't seem to be up to me. So, I am trying to be patient before I have a freak out moment (I've been pretty good so far, surprisingly), and hoping that all of the players involved will have a time table that involves me having a job I am happy with come summer. I feel lucky I have options. I am blessed that my chosen career should lead to employment in hard economic times. And I am even more blessed and lucky that I should be well compensated doing a job I enjoy. So I'm not complaining. But I am a little stressed.

My biggest goals in the process are to find a job I will be happy doing (at least most days), pays fairly and comparably for the work I am doing (one of my biggest fears is that unfortunate reality that women still make 75 cents on the dollar to men for the same work), and will allow me to continue to build my skills as a surgeon and as a stepping stone for the rest of my career. Oh, and it has to be close enough for me to live with my husband.

So how about a few horizon, cloud pictures I found pretty to help you contemplate my proverbial new horizons...

And please let me know if you know the perfect OMS job in my area!