And so it begins

Again intended to post this earlier, but here it is. Better late than never:

So here we are. Summer ended way too early and before we knew it, third year aka 'clerkship' aka 'the start of real medicine' aka 'the rest of our lives' had begun. So many people had said that clerkship would be the best part of med school. It would be the year where we finally learned real medicine and how to be doctors. It would be exciting! It would be fun! It would be amazing! All the superlatives on what we should expect and how we should feel.

Everyone around me seemed so excited and so ready to begin. But me? I was absolutely terrified. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted so much to feel like a ‘real doctor’ and be in the hospital treating real patients. But I was not excited. I was scared. I had no idea what to expect, what was expected of me. I mean, let’s face it, my clinical knowledge was so limited to theoretical what-ifs and standardized patients. I’d never treated anyone for real before. And what about the residents? And the consultants? Would they be mean? Would I get yelled at? What if I get paged when I’m on call and have no idea what to do? There were so many what-ifs. So no sir, I was not excited. I was frightened, petrified, spooked. And I felt like the hugest idiot in the world. And we had not even started.

The start of school came so quickly. One moment we were finished exams and summer had started. But then as fast as you can say “vacation” third year had started. We were off to a jam-packed start with intro to clerkship lecture week. Basically it was a week of reviews, and how-to seminars for different procedures (IVs, suturing, intubations, casting, etc). It was actually quite fun and helpful (and at times bloody – hello IVs!) but again it flew by. Soon we were at the Labour Day weekend. And that entire weekend I was so nervous.

You see, the way clerkship works at our institution is that our class is divided up into different groups. Each group will rotate through the core specialties (surgery, medicine, psychiatry, family medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, paediatrics) but in different orders. My clerkship group (and my first choice) started with surgery first. I figured I’d start clerkship with a bang and jump with both feet first. But surgery was also the most notoriously intense rotation. Thus explained my nervous anxiety.

First day of the rotation was actually okay. It was held at big academic hospital on campus and we were sent to the big fancy robotics department. The day was actually super fun and not nerve wracking (except for the lecture in the morning from the senior general surgery resident on what the ‘expectations’ for clinical clerks were – aka being scut monkeys). It was pretty much a hands-on session for learning how to do IVs, suture, tie knots, intubate again. Good practice.

And it would have been an excellent day had I been able to figure out how to tie a surgical knot.

Let's just say I was not the brightest bulb when it came to tying knots. In the one hour session we had, the first 30-40 minutes of it were spent by me trying how to figure out to do this one stupid one-hand square knot tie while everyone else had moved onto the more complex surgeon’s knot. The good news was that the attending physician supervising us was very nice and patient with me. But eventually even he gave up and got the – ahem – hot cardiac surgery resident to come help me. Let's just say that did not help the situation at all:

Hot cardio resident
So let's teach you how to tie some knots
Stuff to self
Good grief this guy is hot. How am I supposed to concentrate?
Hot cardio resident
[takes Stuff's hands in his while making a knot]
Make a figure four...loop the string around... finger under, over...
Stuff
Uh-huh
To self
I have no clue what this guy's doing or saying. Hmm, don't think this holding hands business is really doing anything to help my knot tying. Is it me or it really hot in here?

Now in the midst of the small talk the group was making (I was too busy trying to get that darn knot), I hear hot cardio resident mention that he’s actually the chief resident on vascular surgery this month and if anyone was doing vascular as a selective. And I don’t know why but someone’s voice which sounded a whole lot like mine said loudly in an overly enthusiastic tone “I am!” (needless to say I was shocked by said boldness). He turns and says ‘Oh great! I should spend more time with you to make sure your knots are awesome.’ To which I think to myself 'Oh crap, now he'll remember me as the girl who cannot tie knots.'

Good thing I was a great deal better at suturing (hot cardio resident said they looked good - at least I am not COMPLETELY without hope). But I was more than slightly intimidated and nervous by the fact that when I was leaving for the day, he patted me on the shoulder and said 'Hey see you in 2 week!'. Aww you would say, how sweet. But to me that scared me. Because that meant the remembered me. He remembered me at the end of the day and he would remember me in 2 weeks as the girl who absolutely sucked at tying knots. What a way to begin clerkship. Needless to say I have been practicing knot tying relentlessly ever since.