E.T. the alien physician |
Today I got B+/B- for my report. If I were in school
again it would have been a disaster. I used to get A/A or
5/5 in our equivalent for all essays. I used to write for
cash later: an article here an article there – easy money. I
still do when I have time, describing my new life full of
stupid events. Just for my friends and relatives. Not for a
profit anymore. I’m paid enough to maintain a positive
balance on my debit card, I don’t have much time, and my
English sucks. Yep, it still sucks – our program director
gave me B+ for the content and B- for grammar and spelling
(didn’t I ran spellchecker twice?? I did! I did!). “Doctor
G, I disagree with…” – “Shut up and put all references in
the appropriate format”! – “Yeesss, maam” (clicking my
heels… ok, ok, shuffling in my shabby running shoes). Well,
hell – it was an autopsy report, and I am a
first-year-pathology-resident. The smallest bug in the whole
medical hierarchy…who makes inappropriate jokes and
comments… who is way too loud…who visits our chairman for
“disciplinary talks” on regular basis… It’s like
“back-to-school-Groundhog-Day-style game”. “What kind of a
resident are you??” – “Apparently, a bad one”. But you know
what? No complaints, folks. You did see me on the interview
whole day long. You should have known better. I didn’t lie
in my CV. Probably I exaggerated a bit in one of the letter
of reference: “She shines with the humility” – here we go,
here is the humility… You knew what to expect when I came to
the drug screening in my favourite T-shirt: “I am not an
alcoholic, I am a drunk. Alcoholics to-go-meeting”. It’s my
sister’s present, and I haven’t seen her for two years…
“Which illicit substances do you use?” – asked a nurse.
“Nothing illegal maam. Only things you can buy in a
drug-store”. They cleared me somehow that time.
Funny, but nobody is yelled at as frequently as me. When our
program director is not in the mood (which happens almost
every week), the rest of us play “duck and cover game”.
“Helen, come here quickly – she is having a fit again”. And
here I come: you can shout at me, Dr. G – I’ll be a
lightening rod for today. And she does… “No more
questions!!! You remind me of my teenage kids!! I have to
deal with them every damn day!!!” And you remind me of my
dad, Dr. G… I’ve almost learned not to argue and not to ask
questions in inappropriate moments. Do you think it helped?
Not at all: “If I ever EVER see THAT face again, your
residency is over!!! AND I MEAN THIS!!!” Ok, next time I’ll
show up in a gas mask… “You’ll be reading this chart for ONE
HOUR and then I want to see the exact dates of
hospitalisations, the procedures, the complications in
chronological order. OFF YOU GO!!” At least no push-ups,
thanks for that. A patient spent 4 months in 6 different
hospitals… In order to go through “the chart” one needs a
set of maps, a GPS and a couple of medical dictionaries…
Nevertheless, I was done in 45 minutes. “Wow, look at that
table! She did it so comprehensively!” I guess I’m still in
the pay-roll only because sometimes I can do things
properly, and there are rare moments when I’m able to
produce a comprehensive answer at the conference. Besides,
there are sane attendings in my department who cover my ***
on regular basis.
There are rare moments in my residency life when everything
seems to be just fine. Seems to be… Till the next meeting
with the PD… “This is the last warning for everyone! If I
get another complain, some of you will go back to Canada
(it’s not me) and some of you will go… I don’t know
where…let’s say, home!” (It’s me:)). The problem is, I don’t
know anymore where my home is. Honestly, I’ve never known.
We moved a lot when I was a kid. I changed 6 schools; I used
to live with my parents and my sis in one small room full of
boxes with our stuff. What’s the reason to unpack? We are
moving again in 6 months. I kept moving on my own later on.
When I bought my first (and probably the last) apartment, I
haven’t done any renovation. What for? It’s temporarily; I
am planing on going abroad. Funny, but I call “home” any
place I stay more than one night. “Let’s go home, we are
drunk as Skunk” – meaning: it’s time to return to our tent
in a campground or to our dorm room in a hostel. (BTW, Skunk
is a good friend of mine). Nothing has changed in the
US-of-A. I had a “home” in Washington DC for one month. I
stayed with my close friends in Maryland repeatedly, and
even provided enough proofs of the residency to get my SSN
and my jeep registered. I still drive with Maryland tags…
“Guys, cover me for one hour – I am driving home, to
Maryland” – “Bye, guys, I’ll see you in one week. It’s time
for me to drive home to Pittsburgh”. Pittsburgh is “just for
a while” too. In three years I’ll have to move for a
fellowship elsewhere. In four years I am moving again… to
Australia or New Zealand… or, probably, Canada, which “is
not a real country anyway” as my new friends like to sing.
For how long? Who knows… And what will be my next
destination afterwards? Who knows…
I don’t know anymore what my real name is. It’s spelled
differently in three driver’s licenses I have. Ok, the
Canadian one is not real. It says “driving license” on the
front and “fake for 15 usd on-line” on the back. But I used
it successfully as a state ID for almost half a year. It
worked really nice in bars and pubs (they still card me, can
you believe?). I used my national license for driving, and
the cops were smart enough to give me tickets and scare me
with points. (I can write whole article about my police
encounters in different states – most of them had a happy
end). If you drive with a non-american license, the points
don’t matter. It’s like in “Whose line is it anyway” – to
keep the show going. A cop pretends to punish me, I pretend
to be scared – we play our parts as good as we can. I even
attended a court session once, got some money back and got
rid of mysterious points. “I’ve made my statement, Your
Honor, and I have nothing more to add”. A magical word
“doctor” works in the US too?! Why didn’t you tell me
before?! I promised not to speed without a reason (I didn’t
deceive them - I always have an excuse). Sure, I’ll get a
local license this month… I kept flunking my driving test
repeatedly till I learned how to drive a car with automatic
transmission 25 miles/hr in a work zone and how to stop on
“stop” signs. Thanks to Sarah who sacrificed her brand new
“Mazda” not mentioning her time. It took us about 6 months…
BTW, speaking about “Whose line” – I played
“two-line-vocabulary” game with my favourite attendings
successfully. My lines were “I don’t know” and “Is it in the
board exam?” It worked just fine: I was left alone for whole
day with the diagnosis of “idiot”. Well, one of them smelled
a rat but I dispelled his doubts.
I am still wondering, how long I’m gonna last? The annual
evaluation is in 3 days… By chance, I saw a paper with our
names and comments… Good residents got “Ok”and “Good job”;
some of us were marked as “marginal” but guess who has a
whole paragraph under the last name? “What are you staring
at?? Pay attention at what I say!!” – Yes, maam, am sorry…
Nope, am not:). And they know it:). But I survived for
almost a year, and what a year it’s been! A trip to Key West
with my best friend… medieval festival with my friends from
Maryland… night snowboarding with Sarah and Malcolm… trips
to Moscow, London and Canada… a poster “wanted for furniture
tossing” made by my residency buddies after “Sarah’s moving
weekend”… These stupid details and small events worth a year
of yelling, screaming and balancing on the edge… Good luck
to everyone, and I hope you’ll enjoy your residency life as
much as I do!