Musings while procrastinating

I can’t believe that I have spent three years in Graduate Medical School, 3/4 almost doctor and still none the wiser.

I remember hugging my father at the airport before I embarked on this roller coaster of a journey. Tears streaming down my face (and maybe snot as well, not a good look), he whispered in my ear “The years will fly by my love.” “Yea right, buddy.” I thought. I think a more accurate thing to say would have been “The years would have flown by in retrospect, my love.” I won’t deny how I thought the days would never end in first and second year, second year especially, where we were like frightened geese being fattened, being force fed stacks and stacks of pathology and clinical knowledge on top of all we had to digest in year one, sometimes against will. My 30 odd year old brain begged for mercy. Second year… my heart still races and palms get sweaty thinking about it. It was also the year where I had my first major meltdown after the final OSCE exam. I cried from the time I exited the exam, drove, got home, where the crying continued as I did the dishes. It was comic, in retrospect.

Now with graduation being a year away, and impending recruitment drives I can actually participate in, not just help organise, I find myself thinking a lot more about what specialty I might like to train in.

With the new residency programme in place, medical graduates now have the option of selecting what they would like to do for the rest of their lives from the time they graduate, subject of course to the elusive selection process- first choice, not guaranteed- endless days as an eventual MO waiting to enter a specialty training, most guaranteed.

It is a scary thought.

I embarked on this journey so sure I wanted to be an obstetrician, fuelled further by the excellent first year elective experience I had where I spent 2 weeks out of 4 in the O&G dept of New Delhi’s largest referral hospital. I was so certain.

Now? I am not so sure.

As graduate medical students, we have to throw another factor into the mix, age. My peers and I all have previous degrees and a couple of years of work experience under our belts. The reality is a lot more stark for the females, I mean let’s face it we are all roughly at the age where we start to worry about practical things like starting a family, settling down and the viability of our eggs. Advice from well meaning, senior doctors always advise us to consider lifestyle when we choose a speciality. There’s a common saying here in Australia; Women handle tears and (pap)smears, ie: most women end up in General Practice. A very senior, no doubt sexist doctor, who during a recruitment drive early in the year ruffled many female feathers when he made the comment, “Women, you should all just consider the family medicine track, you have the option of becoming a hospital resident physician, where your greatest contribution would have been that you’ve been there a long time”.

I started employing the process of elimination, trying to figure out what I enjoyed less of and hence started crossing things out as I went along. Then wise words from yet another senior doctor, “Don’t start eliminating what you think you don’t like. Your experience as an intern will be very different from your experience as a medical student.”

How like that?

Sweeping under carpet for now.

Back to short term immediate goals, like the exams in 3 weeks.

October 29, 2011. Med School, Think, Thunk, Thought.