It's been one week since I've become an official third year medical student. One week.
But because of this week, I am now equipped with all the tools that I'll need as a third year. Supposedly.
This week I learned how to access patient charts and put in orders. I learned how to place an IV and draw blood. I was taught the minute details and changes to the oral presentations that the various rotations require. I was declared to be tuberculosis-free. I practiced how to put foley catheters in male and female pelvic models. I finally received my shiny new badge, and my own personal pager. We had lectures on how to read xrays and learned how to write the perfect history and physical.
And tomorrow, I'll recite the Geneva Oath all over again, and receive my brand new white coat. Still short to signify my bottom-of-the-totem-pole status, but now embroidered with my name! Yes!
I would say that I can't wait, but I kinda can. I can wait, and I wish I could wait.
And that feeling? It doesn't make any sense. Technically, I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. I've groaned and whined about it for the past two years, complaining about things like 'if it's an outdated drug, why do I need to know the side effects? It's not as though my patients on the wards are going to be on it.' Furthermore, this is the cliched reason why we all came to med school. Not to study medical textbooks for two years, but to help people. To care for patients. Real patients.
So why is it that three days before the official didactic-to-clinical transition, I feel totally incompetent and want to run in the opposite direction as far as I can? And as fast as I can?
I'm guessing it's just fear of the unknown. When I step into that hospital on Monday morning, I will have no clue what's going to happen. No idea if I'll be given a heart attack patient or someone with pulmonary emboli, or maybe someone with just some abdominal pain. And because of that, I can't really prepare. And so it's fear of not knowing how much I'll know and recall in the spur of the moment. It's fear of not knowing how confident I'll be in coming up with a differential diagnosis, or placing an IV. It's fear of not knowing if I'll be putting in catheters correctly. It's the fear of not knowing if my inherent awkwardness will be laughed off by patients. It's the fear of not knowing how to act in my bottom feeder role.
Being in the hospital as a second year student was fun. I got to shadow an attending and see patients, and it was fun and exciting. Because I was a shadow. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to see, and what I was supposed to say. It was easy, because I just parroted whatever my attending did.
And now it's all gonna be me. No more training wheels. No more bumper guards. No more practice runs. It's all me.
I just have to trust in my education. Trust that I learned a lot these past couple of years. Trust that I have the skills. I just have to trust myself.
Technically, I've been taught everything that I'll need to know. I just need to review it. Practice it. Use it.
I can do this. Because everything in my life has been leading up to this moment. To this transition. And so, I can do this, because I have the tools and the knowledge base to do this.
Supposedly.
