July is upon us again: that New Year celebrated only by those in the medical field. A time when medical students begin as doctors, interns become residents, residents become fellows and, basically, everyone in every position is one year less experienced at it than the person who held that position the day before.
This July marks the end of my first year of pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship. Finally, after college, grad school, med school, residency, chief residency, fellowship number one, and now the beginning of fellowship number two, it is the end of my last first year of training. A time for gratefulness, sentiment, exhaustion and introspection.
As I watch the new interns at my hospital in the first hours and days of this step of training, I and those around me try our best to offer reassurances: We have all been there. This is hard. No one expects you to know it all. We made mistakes, too. Recalling my own early training, I can only half-cringe, half-smile at some noteworthy mistakes I made along the way.
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