Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

That was a month ago, and now, I lumber on to post my first.

I wanted to do this this year because I still feel a bit like I'm standing on the outside of being a doctor, or medical person, or whatever, and looking in.  When we were going through orientation for beginning our clinical years of med school a few weeks ago, a recurrent theme sounding from nearly everyone was: "this marks the end of you as a student, as a normal person, and the beginning of you as a doctor.  You will always go the extra mile, being the first to be rounding on your patients in the morning, the last to leave.  You will live and breathe medicine, love hearing the sound of your own footsteps walking empty hospital hallways at 3am, and marry a gastroenterologist who is as intense, focused, and driven as you are so that you can one day become the ultimate doctor."

Well, I'm a sinner, and have a lot of improving to do, but I'm pretty happy overall with who I am.  I don't really want to be transformed into someone else--I don't want to BE a doctor.  I just want to be me, but be able to take care of people, too.  I like that I have interests outside of medicine, like that I can talk somewhat intelligently with Lauren about theology, like that I have non-medical friends, like that I like Russian literature, and like that I'm not "the ultimate doctor".

So, hopefully, I and whoever else reads this (Lauren) will be able to keep track of what I'm thinking this year, this year that I'm supposed to leave the old behind, and become a new medical creation.