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The day has finally come… I am officially a doctor! A physician! An M.D.! And I have my beautifully crafted diploma sitting beside me to prove it! I will no longer be a mere medical student at the bottom rung of the hospital hierarchy. Today is the day when I am bestowed the honor and privilege to hold a person’s life in my hands. Wow… I better not mess it up.
I didn’t think I would feel different after my medical school graduation. After all, it’s just another day, right? But walking on that stage, being hooded in front of my family, friends, and mentors, was something else. It finally hit me. I have had this dream of becoming a doctor for the last 20 years (seriously, check out my fifth grade notes on becoming a “docter” when I grew up). I’ve studied. I’ve taken tests. I’ve worked all hours. And now that day is here. It’s a remarkable and powerful feeling to finally reach a goal that has been out of your grasp for so many years. While a thousand different thoughts and emotions are running through my head, one thing I know for sure. I am going to be the best physician that I can be. I have worked too hard to become anything less than that.
While I can’t deny I am on a graduation high right now, today is also bittersweet. It’s the day that I leave everyone who means anything to me for a life unknown on the Other Coast. I take with me only my fiancé and rainbow of emotions. Will I like my residency program? Will I like my co-workers? Will they like me? Will my suturing and knot-tying be up to par in the operating room? Will I remember how to deliver a baby? Will my patients have confidence in me? Do I have confidence in me?
Stay tuned to find out.
Showing posts with label med school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label med school. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Doctor as the Patient
I hate being the patient. I know that sounds ironic given my choice of careers, but I do.
Last month, I was kept up until the wee hours of the morning with a dreadful bellyache. Placing the doctor’s thinking cap on my head, I made a mental checklist of all the possible sources of my discomfort. I ran through the usual home remedies and over-the-counter treatments without success. Ugh. Looks like it was time for me to make a trip to the doctor’s office.
Now, being at the tail end of medical school, and about to embark on my own career as a physician, going to the doctor is a completely different experience. I no longer go to the doctor as a patient. I go with the knowledge that doctors are human. They are not all knowing - they only know as much as they have read or experienced. They have other lives – meaning they’d like to get your visit over with soon so that they can go home to their families too. On the other hand, having spent the last two years seeing patients as a medical student, I also know what it’s like to have patients who are skeptical of your ability and desire to help them.
All this knowledge makes it a dreadful experience when it’s my turn to be the patient. Take last week, for example. I dutifully brought the Prilosec I had been taking as well as the dosage schedule. I brought the Mylanta. I articulated clearly the onset and character of my belly pain. I tried my hardest to respect the time and expertise of my physician. However, there was the voice in the back of my head, the medical student, that kept second guessing her. “I told her my pain is not epigastric and not related to meals, so why is she still talking about reflux? And why should I continue the same medication if it’s not working? Isn’t she going to check for H. Pylori? What if I have an ulcer?!?” So, in the politest way possible, I ask her these questions. And then I ask her some more. And some more. Until she finally throws her hands up and tells me “Let’s just treat it like reflux and see what happens.”
Soon I realize I have morphed into the patients we physicians all dread to encounter: The know-it-all, internet searching patient who knows a thousand times better than you what is wrong with her. She knows what tests to run and knows what medicines to take. In fact, the only reason she comes to you at all is because she needs you to write the orders. If she could do it herself, she would. I have also become the hypochondriac patient. The one that has made a list of all the things she could possibly have. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t fit the patient profile. She is convinced she has all of them. And right now, I have it in my head that I have an ulcer. I have also become the non-compliant patient…because I am convinced I do not have reflux. I will not change the types of food I eat or times of the day I eat or my sleeping position.
Fast forward to today. The belly pain went away a couple days later with the tincture of time. And while I still don’t know what the cause was, I did learn a valuable lesson. Being a patient is no fun. Having the answers about your body in someone else’s hands is a scary and frustrating experience. Could the doctor have been a better listener? Sure. Could she have taken my questions more seriously? Of course. Could she have empathized better with my discomfort? Yes. Most importantly, will I always aim to do these things with my patients? Absolutely. And hopefully my patients will agree.
Last month, I was kept up until the wee hours of the morning with a dreadful bellyache. Placing the doctor’s thinking cap on my head, I made a mental checklist of all the possible sources of my discomfort. I ran through the usual home remedies and over-the-counter treatments without success. Ugh. Looks like it was time for me to make a trip to the doctor’s office.
Now, being at the tail end of medical school, and about to embark on my own career as a physician, going to the doctor is a completely different experience. I no longer go to the doctor as a patient. I go with the knowledge that doctors are human. They are not all knowing - they only know as much as they have read or experienced. They have other lives – meaning they’d like to get your visit over with soon so that they can go home to their families too. On the other hand, having spent the last two years seeing patients as a medical student, I also know what it’s like to have patients who are skeptical of your ability and desire to help them.
All this knowledge makes it a dreadful experience when it’s my turn to be the patient. Take last week, for example. I dutifully brought the Prilosec I had been taking as well as the dosage schedule. I brought the Mylanta. I articulated clearly the onset and character of my belly pain. I tried my hardest to respect the time and expertise of my physician. However, there was the voice in the back of my head, the medical student, that kept second guessing her. “I told her my pain is not epigastric and not related to meals, so why is she still talking about reflux? And why should I continue the same medication if it’s not working? Isn’t she going to check for H. Pylori? What if I have an ulcer?!?” So, in the politest way possible, I ask her these questions. And then I ask her some more. And some more. Until she finally throws her hands up and tells me “Let’s just treat it like reflux and see what happens.”
Soon I realize I have morphed into the patients we physicians all dread to encounter: The know-it-all, internet searching patient who knows a thousand times better than you what is wrong with her. She knows what tests to run and knows what medicines to take. In fact, the only reason she comes to you at all is because she needs you to write the orders. If she could do it herself, she would. I have also become the hypochondriac patient. The one that has made a list of all the things she could possibly have. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t fit the patient profile. She is convinced she has all of them. And right now, I have it in my head that I have an ulcer. I have also become the non-compliant patient…because I am convinced I do not have reflux. I will not change the types of food I eat or times of the day I eat or my sleeping position.
Fast forward to today. The belly pain went away a couple days later with the tincture of time. And while I still don’t know what the cause was, I did learn a valuable lesson. Being a patient is no fun. Having the answers about your body in someone else’s hands is a scary and frustrating experience. Could the doctor have been a better listener? Sure. Could she have taken my questions more seriously? Of course. Could she have empathized better with my discomfort? Yes. Most importantly, will I always aim to do these things with my patients? Absolutely. And hopefully my patients will agree.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Match Day!
Now that the whirlwind of celebration has started to die down, I can sit down to write about this pivotal day... and the events that brought me to this place.
Since I was about 15 years old, I knew I was going to be an OB/GYN. Growing up in a traditional household of an immigrant family, nobody talked about the body below the belt, let alone all the trouble it could get you into. By the time I reached the hormonal sea of adolescence, I had many more questions than I had answers. Suffice it to say, my teenage friends and I learned about our bodies and our sexuality the hard way, through trial and error. While, by the grace of god, we never got ourselves into too much trouble, I loathed this feeling of unfamiliarity with the most intimate aspects of my body. It was like I had been carrying around this mysterious set of equipment for which I had no instruction manual (unless you count Seventeen magazine) . By the time I reached a place where my vagina and I were friends, I knew two things: I wanted to work with young women my age and I wanted to make sure they were educated about their bodies in a way I never was.
Fast forward to the present: I am in the tail end of medical school (3.5 months until graduation!). I've got a masters in public health under my belt. I've spent countless hours working with homeless and at-risk youth. I'm proud of my work thus far. But until now, all of it has been just another step in getting me closer to my goal of being the grassroots, pro-active physician and reproductive health advocate I've always dreamed of. And I'm not quite there. Yet.
Fast forward to Match Week: So, Match Week is the most important day in every medical student's career and for me this was no exception. This is the day in which the student learns (a) if s/he was accepted into a training program in the field of his/her choice and (b) where she will be pursuing this training. Now any program in the United States will give you the same set of skills to be good doctor. But some programs go above and beyond to train their physicians to both provide good patient care and become real leaders in the health care field. Within OB/GYN residency programs, this can be manifested by a program's emphasis on research, availability of mentors, opportunities to practice abroad, or inclusion of family planning training. As I am sure is glaringly obvious from what you've read so far, this was important to me.
Of course, nothing in life is easy, and getting the residency program of your choice is no exception. For me, this process complicated by the fact I am going through the match as part of a couple. The "Couple's Match", as it is commonly referred to, is when two people link their applications together in the hopes of matching into a program in the same place. To make this even more difficult, my handsome fiancé decided to pursue one of the most competitive specialties in medicine: Orthopaedic Surgery. Every year, about 900 medical students apply for about 700 spots. That leaves 200 medical students unmatched each year, without any residency to go to after graduation. So to make the couple's match work for us, he had to secure one of those coveted spots in the same place that I did. No pressure, right?
Finally Match Day had come. And man, were we nervous. As I usually do when I'm nervous, I put on my best dress, did my hair, and slapped on some make-up. I reason that if I look good, I will feel good, and all this goodness will somehow translate into good news when I open that envelope. (Makes no sense, but desperate times call for desperate measures!) The boy and I drive up to campus. When we enter the ballroom, the room is permeated with nervous energy. Classmates are chatting incessantly, as if the more they socialize, the longer this moment will be postponed. The dean calls everyone to their seats. He speaks for about 10 minutes but I don't hear a single word. I breathe deeply in and out to calm my rapidly beating heart. Finally, he releases us outside to the wall of envelopes. My fiancé and I make our way to the beginning of the alphabet and take down the envelopes bearing our name. Our futures lie inside these little packages. Not knowing if the news they contain will be good or bad, we find a tiny little corner away from all the commotion. The cheers of relief, joy, and congratulations have already started behind us. I begin to tear at my envelope and realize I can't do it. I don't know if I can bear seeing our 10th or 12th choice on the page. "You go first." I say to him. He rips open the envelope. As he unfolds the paper inside, I meticulously monitor his face for any sign of emotion. He reads the letter.
"We did it! We got our number one!" He screams. The next thing I know, he is jumping up and down hugging me in happiness. I open my own envelope to confirm that my letter says the same. It does. Now I am jumping up and down as well, half laughing, half crying, part screaming. We run to join the rest of our class in celebration. He's right. We really did it.
I'm a happy girl right now. I am going to train at a place that will allow me to be the kind of physician I've always dreamed of. And I am taking the love of my life with me. Of course, as any Type A personality will tell you, now that we know where we are going, I'm already thinking about the next step. Cross-country moving plans, possible home-buying, wedding planning, pre-residency vacation planning...
I say bring it on.
Since I was about 15 years old, I knew I was going to be an OB/GYN. Growing up in a traditional household of an immigrant family, nobody talked about the body below the belt, let alone all the trouble it could get you into. By the time I reached the hormonal sea of adolescence, I had many more questions than I had answers. Suffice it to say, my teenage friends and I learned about our bodies and our sexuality the hard way, through trial and error. While, by the grace of god, we never got ourselves into too much trouble, I loathed this feeling of unfamiliarity with the most intimate aspects of my body. It was like I had been carrying around this mysterious set of equipment for which I had no instruction manual (unless you count Seventeen magazine) . By the time I reached a place where my vagina and I were friends, I knew two things: I wanted to work with young women my age and I wanted to make sure they were educated about their bodies in a way I never was.
Fast forward to the present: I am in the tail end of medical school (3.5 months until graduation!). I've got a masters in public health under my belt. I've spent countless hours working with homeless and at-risk youth. I'm proud of my work thus far. But until now, all of it has been just another step in getting me closer to my goal of being the grassroots, pro-active physician and reproductive health advocate I've always dreamed of. And I'm not quite there. Yet.
Fast forward to Match Week: So, Match Week is the most important day in every medical student's career and for me this was no exception. This is the day in which the student learns (a) if s/he was accepted into a training program in the field of his/her choice and (b) where she will be pursuing this training. Now any program in the United States will give you the same set of skills to be good doctor. But some programs go above and beyond to train their physicians to both provide good patient care and become real leaders in the health care field. Within OB/GYN residency programs, this can be manifested by a program's emphasis on research, availability of mentors, opportunities to practice abroad, or inclusion of family planning training. As I am sure is glaringly obvious from what you've read so far, this was important to me.
Of course, nothing in life is easy, and getting the residency program of your choice is no exception. For me, this process complicated by the fact I am going through the match as part of a couple. The "Couple's Match", as it is commonly referred to, is when two people link their applications together in the hopes of matching into a program in the same place. To make this even more difficult, my handsome fiancé decided to pursue one of the most competitive specialties in medicine: Orthopaedic Surgery. Every year, about 900 medical students apply for about 700 spots. That leaves 200 medical students unmatched each year, without any residency to go to after graduation. So to make the couple's match work for us, he had to secure one of those coveted spots in the same place that I did. No pressure, right?
Finally Match Day had come. And man, were we nervous. As I usually do when I'm nervous, I put on my best dress, did my hair, and slapped on some make-up. I reason that if I look good, I will feel good, and all this goodness will somehow translate into good news when I open that envelope. (Makes no sense, but desperate times call for desperate measures!) The boy and I drive up to campus. When we enter the ballroom, the room is permeated with nervous energy. Classmates are chatting incessantly, as if the more they socialize, the longer this moment will be postponed. The dean calls everyone to their seats. He speaks for about 10 minutes but I don't hear a single word. I breathe deeply in and out to calm my rapidly beating heart. Finally, he releases us outside to the wall of envelopes. My fiancé and I make our way to the beginning of the alphabet and take down the envelopes bearing our name. Our futures lie inside these little packages. Not knowing if the news they contain will be good or bad, we find a tiny little corner away from all the commotion. The cheers of relief, joy, and congratulations have already started behind us. I begin to tear at my envelope and realize I can't do it. I don't know if I can bear seeing our 10th or 12th choice on the page. "You go first." I say to him. He rips open the envelope. As he unfolds the paper inside, I meticulously monitor his face for any sign of emotion. He reads the letter.
"We did it! We got our number one!" He screams. The next thing I know, he is jumping up and down hugging me in happiness. I open my own envelope to confirm that my letter says the same. It does. Now I am jumping up and down as well, half laughing, half crying, part screaming. We run to join the rest of our class in celebration. He's right. We really did it.
I'm a happy girl right now. I am going to train at a place that will allow me to be the kind of physician I've always dreamed of. And I am taking the love of my life with me. Of course, as any Type A personality will tell you, now that we know where we are going, I'm already thinking about the next step. Cross-country moving plans, possible home-buying, wedding planning, pre-residency vacation planning...
I say bring it on.
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