Earlier this week, my anesthesia intern class received our white coats and pagers. While we ripped through the packaging to try on our (ridiculously over-sized) coats, there was a resounding sentiment of: “Whoa, now it’s getting real!” It’s crazy to think that we’re doctors.
With July 1st coming up awfully fast, I’ve tried to foresee some of the questions I’ll have as I assimilate with my first team. Will the attendings expect more since I was also a med student here? Will they realize its been close to 1.5 years since I did a rotation at this hospital, and six months since I did any clinical rotation? How dumb will I look? And most importantly… am I going to hurt a patient?
The chief residents and faculty members who’ve spoken during our orientations thus far have tried to put us at ease. There are plenty of people to aid us. We’re not going to know everything right off the bat, and no one expects us to. Accept that fact, and use the first few weeks to really learn the inner workings of providing quality patient care. As an additional consolation for our anesthesia interns, we have 12, one-month-long rotations. In other words, if we find ourselves absolutely miserable during one rotation… it’s only a month long. 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting started!
