I remember the fervor of my first day of internship: expecting a daunting yet exciting time lay ahead and I was finally going to be of some use to people. (And to my parents, relatives, and neighbors: “Oh, you’re finally a doctor.”) I felt like Tom Cruise on the airstrip of Miramar racing an F-14 with Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone as he was about to join Top Gun.
However, these cinematic visuals soon came to a halt as I felt grossly unprepared for this new responsibility. I had to be adept with not only medical knowledge, but also the electronic health record (the labyrinth that never ended), assimilate plethora of patient data, learn to communicate this effectively and make management decisions. I was the first point of care for a person: a real person. This weighed heavily on me, since I imagined that when the time came, I would be proficient in all these attributes.
The clocks have flash forwarded, and here I am supervising incoming interns on the 1st of July (which for the past two years has fallen on a weekend). As a frenetic day has finally come to a close, and a walk along a park where the trees have acquired a new color as the sun sets, I cannot help but reflect on my initial days of internship. I am glad for all the initial lessons, but I wish I had a head start to ensure a great initiation, rather than relying on serendipity.
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