Friday's Digest - The Newsletter for Doctors & Scientists
This week was hard.
On regular days, I work around 11 hours. Some days it's around 16.
So when I come home, I have no energy left in my legs.
Exhausted.
I've been thinking a lot lately about where I am. It's been almost two years since I came back home after my fellowship.
Two years of building. A research program, clinical trials, and new roles.
But here's the thing.
I've been here before.
And I know how this ends.
Number 159!
There's a pattern I keep noticing.
I first noticed it during my studies.
During dental school. Then during my PhD. Then, during med school. Then my fellowship. And now (again) since coming back home.
It goes like this: you start something new.
You work. You grind.
Everything requires full concentration. Everything is harder than it should be.
And then, somewhere around the two-year mark, something happens.
Not dramatically. Not overnight. But things start to settle. Your level is different. Your knowledge is different.
The strange part? You rarely notice it while it's happening.
The last day of my fellowship.
I remember the first day, too. I was already a trained surgeon, but still, I was starting over.
New environment, new culture, new expectations.
Everything took effort.
Day 730 was different.
The procedures were the same. The OR was the same. But something had quietly shifted over two years without me ever stopping to watch it happen.
The way I thought through a case.
The way I communicated.
The way I moved.
None of it had changed in a single moment. It accumulated.
Day after day, until I arrived at day 730.
As a different person.
It's the same pattern wherever I look back. In dental school and medical school, there were two years of clinical training, and the jump was enormous.
After 2 years into my PhD, I was running experiments independently, troubleshooting on my own, thinking like a researcher without needing anyone to hold my hand.
I hadn't noticed crossing that line.
I just looked up one day and realized I was already on the other side.
Right now, I'm not at day 730.
I'm somewhere in the middle. Close, but not there yet.
I don't FEEL the progress.
That's the truth.
When you're inside the two years, you don't FEEL yourself growing.
You feel the weight of everything that still requires full concentration.
Everything that still doesn't come automatically.
You don't feel the distance between where you are and where you started.
Here's what gets me through.
Not a morning routine. Not a productivity hack. Not a motivational book.
Just the knowledge.
And when it does, things that required enormous effort become automatic.
Things that felt foreign feel like yours.
You stop second-guessing yourself on problems you've solved a hundred times.
The weight doesn't disappear. But you are bigger than you were, and you carry it differently.
So when it's 10 pm, and my legs have nothing left, I'm not thinking about growth or the long game.
Don't take things off your schedule. Don't do less. Don't let go of the things you wanted when you started. Just keep going.
Because I've been to day 730 before.
That's it for this issue.
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See you next week!
Shay
Friday's Digest - The Newsletter for Doctors & Scientists
For two decades, I've been developing tools that have improved my practice in medicine, dentistry, and scientific research.
Join me every Friday to discover a new tool you can integrate into your workflow as a doctor, a scientist, or both.
I believe in sharing knowledge, embracing automation, boosting productivity, and finding joy in the process.
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