To an intern: what if you were the patient?

Congratulations, student doctor. You studied hard and scored well on your examinations—not only on your Medical College Admissions Test but in your organic chemistry tests as well. You mastered anatomy as well as pharmacology, neurology, and more “-ologies” than you care to remember. Now it is time to get hands-on learning experience, without being able to hide in the library, while preparing for your clerkship shelf examinations or showcasing your talents to the orthopedic service during your anesthesia rotation. You made it through 4 years of college and 4 years of medical school only to plummet to the bottom of the food chain in the hospital. You are now a physician, and in some institutions you are able to don a long, crisp, clean white coat. You have access to physician parking lots and maybe even an exclusive physicians’ lounge. You have more responsibilities than ever before, yet your time to complete these tasks is limited. Congratulations, you are an intern! Not only are you going to learn about the patient’s history, perform physical examinations, and prepare discharge paperwork; you will also learn how each human being expresses pain, sadness, and utter distress. You will see that not everyone speaks your language. You will witness fights among a patient’s family members who are divided on how to proceed with their loved one’s care. Not every patient’s disease follows the textbook pattern, nor will every patient agree with the courses of treatment you spent countless hours learning about. No longer will the response to the patient’s ailment be 1 of 5 diagnoses labeled A through E that you will bubble in on your Scantron form. Patients are going to fight back and question you and your judgment. They are going to demand answers.