It is July 2nd. For those not in the medical field, this merely means that it is 2 days before the Fourth of July.
For me, and for most in the world of medicine, it is a whole new year.
The academic medical year starts on July 1st, every year. It’s why we say you should avoid major hospital ERs in July – new residents, freshly minted MDs, half-clueless and fully terrified, trying to make their way in a world where they suddenly have a title and responsibility. Someone just called them doctor for the first time and they had to look around to make sure they were the doctor in question.
It’s kind of a big deal.
3 years ago today, I was swamped in the maze of a new electronic medical record and 20 kids with cancer and nurses who didn’t trust me further than they could throw me.
6 years ago today, I was in the middle of my 6th shift in the ER praying that I wouldn’t completely fumble the history while being drilled by my ER attending. That I maybe might say something that could pass as sounding like a doctor.
Today, I sat in my own little cubicle of an office. I have a key to it. It is mine, just mine. The walls may not reach to the ceiling, and I may hear every.single.word anyone speaks from the “real” offices that line the hall, but that cubicle, it is mine.
This is my New Year. As good as the beginning of a school year. I went to Office Depot today and got “school supplies” – pens, a white board to keep my grant deadlines in clear view, legal pads on which to brainstorm.
This weekend, I felt happy. Light. Unburdened. I had time with friends and time with books. I did housework and slept in. I took communion – the body and the blood. Clean slate. Fresh start.
And so it begins. The first year. The first “real doctor” year. Soon, I will be the only one who has to see my patients. There will be no “checking out”, no getting someone else to sign off on the plan I am confident is the right one. Other people will have input, of course – such is the beauty of academic medicine, never completely on your own – but in the end, it is my name that counts.
It is terrifying. But it is also time.
Quote for the day:
“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” – T.S. Eliot