Starting my rotations

I’m starting my rotations this coming Monday. I have to admit that I’m embarking on this new chapter with 90% excitement and 10% fear, or perhaps 90% fear and 10% excitement, it’s hard to tell. For those who don’t know how medical school works here’s a brief overview of how it works. Medical School is 4 years long with years 1 & 2 being almost exclusively class- and bookwork. Years 3 & 4 are clinical work in hospitals, doctors’ offices, etc. At the end of 4th year we need to apply for a residency position for 3-5 years of specialty training (pediatrics, family medicine, surgery, etc.).

I feel that college was very similar to the first 2 years of medical (only a much slower pace) and I pretty much knew to expect long boring lectures. July 1 I will have finished my 2nd year and will start my 3rd year knowing a lot of facts, not really knowing how to interpret many of the patients’ symptoms, and not really knowing when to order tests or interpret them, and yet I’m getting released upon the unsuspecting public. (July is when all new medical students and residents start. If you have a choice of when you get sick, do it in May or June and avoid getting sick in July).

I’m not as worried about the cerebral (though I’m still scared) nature of things as I am about learning to do the procedures. I need to learn to place IV lines in people veins, place catheters, and do rectal exams. My only hope for these patients is that they are sedated or in a coma and won’t feel my blundering first attempts