Tomorrow, I start my fourth year of medical school. By the end of July, I will have completed my externship and started my application for residency. It is hard to believe that I am nearing the end of my medical school career. Over the next ten months or so, I will continue rotating through different areas in the hospital, but there will be no shelf exams, no die-hard studying, no wondering what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm there. The decision's been made.
I was talking with Mikey this afternoon about where we were one year ago. I was anxious about starting my clinical years of medical training, having just finished classes and taken Step 1 of my medical boards. I felt unprepared and uncomfortable with the hospital system, with seeing patients on a day-to-day basis, and with my own abilities and role as a member of the medical team. I was just about to start orientation for my family medicine rotation, where I would spend 5 weeks living with my grandparents in Spartanburg and working on weekdays at a small family practice in Gaffney. This was my introduction into medicine. I went on to rotate through Internal Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Ob/Gyn. I learned so much in such a short period of time. It is hard to believe it has only been a year since I started that first rotation.
And now, only a year later, I am about to start my externship in high-risk obstetrics, and I feel confident in my place in the medical team. I know how the system works. I feel comfortable with my level of knowledge and skill, while knowing there is still so much learning and growing ahead of me. I am not scared to enter a patient's room and answer questions they may have about their illness, the risks of a procedure, or what the plan is for their care. And I hope to be a friend and help to the new third year students starting their rotations this year, remembering my fears and self-doubts just one year ago. It is breathtakingly wonderful and awe-inspiring (all of the glory to God!) to look back and see how much I have grown as a future physician in 12 short months.
And I have grown as a person in even more ways. Mikey and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on June 20, and we are expecting the arrival of our daughter in August. I have made so many wonderful friends through working with different students on my rotations throughout the past year and through my new church family. I am truly blessed.
Now, I can start to look forward to what this next year has to offer as I continue growing...as a future physician (less than 10 months until I am an M.D.!), as a wife, as a friend, and as a mother.
I was talking with Mikey this afternoon about where we were one year ago. I was anxious about starting my clinical years of medical training, having just finished classes and taken Step 1 of my medical boards. I felt unprepared and uncomfortable with the hospital system, with seeing patients on a day-to-day basis, and with my own abilities and role as a member of the medical team. I was just about to start orientation for my family medicine rotation, where I would spend 5 weeks living with my grandparents in Spartanburg and working on weekdays at a small family practice in Gaffney. This was my introduction into medicine. I went on to rotate through Internal Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Ob/Gyn. I learned so much in such a short period of time. It is hard to believe it has only been a year since I started that first rotation.
And now, only a year later, I am about to start my externship in high-risk obstetrics, and I feel confident in my place in the medical team. I know how the system works. I feel comfortable with my level of knowledge and skill, while knowing there is still so much learning and growing ahead of me. I am not scared to enter a patient's room and answer questions they may have about their illness, the risks of a procedure, or what the plan is for their care. And I hope to be a friend and help to the new third year students starting their rotations this year, remembering my fears and self-doubts just one year ago. It is breathtakingly wonderful and awe-inspiring (all of the glory to God!) to look back and see how much I have grown as a future physician in 12 short months.
And I have grown as a person in even more ways. Mikey and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on June 20, and we are expecting the arrival of our daughter in August. I have made so many wonderful friends through working with different students on my rotations throughout the past year and through my new church family. I am truly blessed.
Now, I can start to look forward to what this next year has to offer as I continue growing...as a future physician (less than 10 months until I am an M.D.!), as a wife, as a friend, and as a mother.
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