When Time Stands Still

It is Monday morning and I am drinking coffee and playing online poker instead of going to work, treating patients, and earning a living. I wish I could say I was on vacation lying on a beach somewhere but actually I am at the court house serving on jury duty. As much as I dislike getting the summons to serve and costs me due to lost wages I realize it is my civic responsibility and I do so begrudgingly (not that I have any choice). Anyway, it give me time to blog.

You know you really enjoy an activity when it seems that time goes by very quickly when you are engaged in such activity. Contrarily, some activities (like jury duty), it seems as though the clock is not moving or worse seems to be moving backwards. This clearly indicates how tedious and unenjoyable certain activities are. Other examples of such activities include sitting in a really boring lecture or sermon, engaging in certain exercise routines, or some employment situations where people are engaged in boring and tedious work.

There are two activities that come to mind when I feel that time just flies by. The first is casino gambling. I realize this is probably not so good but in truth I could sit at a blackjack table or a poker table for hours and it feels like I just sat down, especially if I am winning (a rare event). Of course the casinos promote this by not having any clocks visible or any windows so gamblers will lose their sense of time and continue to enrich the proprietors. I guess it is a good thing that the nearest casino is over two hours away and I refuse to take part in online gambling (only play money).

The second activity where I lose sense of time is in the operating room. I can tell you that there are instances during an operation when I ask the OR nurse for the time and hours have passed when it feels like twenty minutes. In the past I have been involved in surgeries that last for 12-18 hours. Although I no longer perform such operations, those hours were amongst the shortest of my life. I suspect for those who are not surgeons it is difficult to understand how a person can operate for many hours straight without a break or wake up in the middle of the night and operate with little or no sleep. I suppose when a surgeon's concentration is so intense and focused the feel for time is lost. It is this intensity along with the gratification experienced by being a surgeon that creates the phenomenon of timelessness.

In medical school the third year is designed to allow the student to rotate through the various specialties and allow them to experience each discipline. When I first went to the operating room during this year I knew immediately this was where I wanted to be. Even at that early stage I felt time was imperceptible and that was the indication that this is where I need to be. Although I was a student and just assisting the main surgeon I knew I eventually wanted to be the person holding the scalpel.

It is a truly a gift when ones work is so interesting that it seems as though time doesn't exist whereas sitting at a job every day and watching the clock stand still is akin to torture. I realize I whine a lot on this blog about the ills of the health care situation but as I sit here at jury duty (I swear that clock is not moving) I honestly feel fortunate for what I am doing every day at work. And if I have a bad day I can always come home and play online poker.