Thursday, June 19, 2014

"By the Road to the Contagious Hospital..."

I'm sad to say that this will be my last post on this blog.  Orientation finishes today, and tomorrow is my first day on the floors in the hospital in my new role as physician.

I even have an ID badge that tells people who I am!  It's very official-looking, isn't it?  Looking at it, someone might even mistake me for someone who actually knows something.

is this real life?

All joking aside though, I am so ready to start.  Being a medical student was amazing, but I can't wait to finally be able to introduce myself to patients and say "Hi, I'm your doctor."  It still feels fake - even after four years of studying and practicing, I don't feel like I know enough about anything to treat anyone.  This year is going to be an incredibly steep learning curve (I feel like even that is a HUGE understatement).

Any new beginning is scary - in medicine or in anything!  I've gone through so many new beginnings throughout medical school (every new rotation, hospital, attending) that I should be used to these first-day jitters by now.  But I do feel like I'm as prepared as I probably can be (or actually, should I have re-read Step Up to Medicine? Or all of Harrison's? Oh no! What if everyone else did that?), and I'm sure I will be well-supported by my co-interns, my senior residents, the attendings, the nurses, and the program administration.  All that's really left to do is just jump in!



Hopefully I'll continue writing in some capacity, and I hope you buy my book when I write it one day (just kidding? kind of?).  Thank you for sharing my journey with me, and always feel free to email me with anything at mdwalksintobar@gmail.com.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations! You are on the way of being the what you want to be.There were many challenges in the medical student years. And there will be in your physician time. The only thing can keep you walking further should be keep learning which you have been doing all the times. As a doc, the drug discovery related information should be learned at the first time. And there will be no ends for that.

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  2. Hi Elena, I'm seeing that this blog is about 3 years old, but I stumbled upon it in my search about New Jersey Medical Schools. I am a senior at Cornell University and my dream school is Rutgers and I was wondering if you had any tips about the application process because I'm really nervous about not getting in! I don't know anybody who has gone here, so I would love to hear any advice you have to offer.

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