Sunday, June 17, 2012

That awkward moment between graduating and starting residency when you have no clue what to tell people you do

So it is official, I got to graduate. I am an MD. I am a doctor. I cannot believe it. I was waiting for something bad to happen but for once it didn't. I was allowed to graduate! Now I am sitting in my new apartment in my new city waiting for residency to start and I can't believe I am a doctor. It definitely hasn't set in yet. I was sitting in the spa the other day, filling out a form before getting a well deserved massage, and I was asked for my "occupation." I didn't know what to put! For the past four years I have put student. But I'm a graduate now. Yet I don't consider myself a doctor quite yet. Mostly because I have no real training yet. I've got this MD and I don't know how to do anything with it. Or even what I'm supposed to do with it. I'm not really unemployed because I signed a work contract but I haven't started my job yet so I feel unemployed. I don't feel a like a doctor. I'm terrified if I tell people I am one they will start asking me questions that I can't answer. So I'm a doctor, what does that even mean at this point? Here I sit, relaxing because I don't start intern year for another week, wondering how I am going to survive. I pretty much haven't done anything for the past three months. How am I going to start working again all of a sudden? How am I going to ever convince myself that I am a doctor. When does that happen? I totally feel like Eliot Reid on Scrubs when she could never explain what it was that she did. And JD was like "you are a doctor." I odn't feel like one. And my mom loves to run around telling everyone that I'm a doctor. And for about a day I loved it too. Now I am not sure I deserve the title. Awkward.