Some Advice
And so the new medical academic year begins. I see it on the face of the enthusiastic, starry-eyed medstudent who shadowed me today. I hear it in the anxious excitement in my sister's voice as she begins life as an intern. Ah, what words of wisdom can I impart?
- The words 'holiday' and 'weekend' no longer exist in your sleep
- You learn to function on 5 hours of sleep every night
- Your new year now begins in June
- Sleep when you can. Eat when you can. There will be no such thing as 'lunchbreak' anymore
- Learn to keep a straight face when you answer the question "Who would like to see this patient" with "Why, yes, I'd love to!"
- A quote from the fabled 'The House of God' By Samuel Shem: At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure to do is to check your own pulse.
- Learn to kiss ass. Really
- There is no such thing as too much coffee
- Never say no to free food
- Treat the nurses nice; they can make your callnight easy, or a living hell. Speaking from experience: a bag of chocolates as a peace offering does wonders
posted by vagus at 6:15 PM
5 Comments:
hi..
i'm a doctor practicing anesthetics in sydney, malaysian born. was blog-hopping when i came across your advice for new interns..
nicely written.. i guess life as doctors suck no matter which part of the world you reside.. haha...
keep it up... :)
all that is soooo true... Especially thr part about treating nurses/staff well... Most of us who train in the Western world learn that very quickly, either directly or indirectly. But strangely, back here doctors (especially the freshly-graduated ones) find that advice quite stupid, then they really suffer the consequences... One of my entire staff of my department on his very first day.. Within an hour of me telling him how not to piss them off!
i meant to say one of my junior doctors managed to piss of the entire staff of my department on his very first day.. (somehow it didn't get typed out that way!)
This is just the advice I need for my life right now. I hate the sucking up to people part though - oh, why must we do this..
And the no lunch break part too. Sigh!
Just to add another tip: Get snacks or granola bars from Sam's club for cheap added sustenance.
Ps: I am not even an intern. Just a lowly 4th year vet student from asia studying in america.
Wow thanks for the advice! I still don't get why doctors have to treat interns so badly when they all have been interns themselves! They know how hard it was.
Post a Comment
<< Home