Bubbly

We were having a discussion about a patient who was so pathologically happy and cheerful that it was easy to imagine she would be quite at home in a cheerleading uniform or as a TV anchor.  We had no idea why she was so cheery, but it bothered us.  It annoyed us.  It irked us.  This speaks much more of the psyche of a resident than it does of the patient.  She was lovely.

My attending paused, thoughtful.  "Maybe it's because she's Southern.  Southern girls are bubbly."

My chief, a beautiful but serious girl stared him down.  "I'm Southern.  I'm not bubbly."

He had no rebuttal.

Tone paging

There are two kinds of paging at my hospital: tone paging and text paging.  Text paging gives you a few minutes to finish what you are doing before you attend to whatever emergency is trying to get your attention on your hip.  Tone paging gives you approximately 27 seconds to get to the closest phone and call back before the person on the other end of the line hangs up.  Tone paging is supposed to only be used for very important calls, and we can get called onto the carpet for not answering tone pages immediately.

The moment I had been dreading since I started residency happened yesterday while I was on call.

I had drank three huge glasses of sweet tea in a valiant attempt to stay awake without drinking Coke.

And I was tone paged.

While in the restroom.

To let me know that my patient had managed to pee.

Matched

"Congratulations, you have matched."

I had been waiting to read that sentence since my rank list was certified in February. I hadn't slept well for weeks. I had been nursing a darling little stomach ulcer. I had been superstitiously afraid to jinx the process in any way, and so had forbidden anyone to say "when you match" in my presence. I had resigned myself to moving to Antarctica and working with a group recovering lost whiskey for the next year.

But one Monday, I got The Email.

Congratulations, you have matched. 

I wish I could appropriately convey the relief and elation that slammed into me at reading that one sentence.

I can't.

I spent the rest of the week wandering in a complete daze wondering where I would be moving in May. I forgot to eat. I forgot to return my library books. I remembered to brush my teeth. Thursday morning DH and I sat in our living room trying to ignore the fact our future would be set (for the next five years) in just a few hours. DH was doing a great job; I was failing miserably.

About 9 a.m. I checked my email for the eighty-sixth time that morning, and noticed a new message :

Congratulations! We are so excited that you matched with us here at World Famous Medical Center. (WFMC from here out.) We look forward to working with you in June. Let us know if we can be of any assistance in your upcoming move to The South.

I read it five times.

"We're moving to The South......oh my goodness, we're moving to The South!!"

Medicine can taste a little bitter...

If you aren't a medical student, a physician,  a friend or relative of a doctor, or sleeping with someone who is, the whole becoming a doctor process can a little bewildering.   The conversation I have with an uninitiated usually goes a little something like this:

“So you’re in medical school.  What are you going to be, a nurse?”

“No.  I’m going to medical school.  To be a doctor.  Of medicine.”

“Oh, that’s great.  How long does that take?”

“Eight years, usually.  Four years of undergraduate, and then four years of medical school.”

“Then you start practicing?  Eight years isn’t too bad.”

"No, but almost.  After medical school we go to residency – it’s like an apprenticeship.”

“Oh.  How long is that?”

“Three years for some specialties, up to six years for others.”

“Oh.  Then you start practicing?”

“Some people do.  Some others go onto special training called fellowships.  That’s how you become a heart doctor, a lung doctor, a heart surgeon…”

"So you get to pick where you do this residency then?  Where are you going?"

"You don't get to pick a place.  You pick the specialty you want to go into.  Then you spend a whole lot of money applying to programs across the United States.  Then you wait for some of them to give you interviews."

"That's great!  They fly you all over the U.S. to interview ~ how fun!"

"Well, not exactly.  You have to pay to fly there.  And for your hotel.  And for your rental car or taxi. A lot of people have to take out more student loans to pay for it."

"Huh.  Do you get to pick where to go then?"

"No, then you make a list of all the programs you interviewed at in order of how much you liked them.  And all the programs make a list of the people they interviewed in order of how much they liked them.  Then the lists go into a magic computer, and they match you with a program."

"So you find out right away?"

"Not exactly.  The lists go into the computer in February, and we find out in March."

"But everyone goes somewhere, right?"

"No, some people don't get matched and don't go anywhere."

"So let me get this straight.  You go to eight years of school.  You pay a lot of money to apply to residency.  You have to take out loans to go to places to interview.  You make a list and then wait a month to find out IF you have a job, and you don't get to pick where you will be moving for the next three to six years. Sheesh.  At least you'll be making a lot of money during residency."

"Around 40,000 a year for 80 hour weeks and three weeks of vacation.  It averages out to a little more than $10 an hour before taxes.  Plus we have to start paying back our school loans."

"Remind me not to let my kids be doctors."