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.

4 comments:

  1. People who make great doctors often don't make great medical students. So maybe med school wasn't your thing, but doctoring may be your calling. Found your blog randomly and really like it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. you spelled "understand" wrong in your blog subheading

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think everyone "understnds" what it means. Get over yourself

      Delete
  3. In Germany you dont earn the titel "MD" by just graduating med school. You have to write a scientific project, which takes about a year working your ass off in a laboratory with the minimum loan possible, in order to get the titel MD.

    and that year is the hardest to explain people what you are actually doing. They keep asking, "Arent you a doctor now?" :)

    So you guys are luckier than us... Sometimes I just think that it cannot get worse.

    ReplyDelete