End of the road

The ride is over. Next week, I am completing my medical residency and becoming a "real doctor" and going into private practice. Most people do not understand what being a resident is all about, with the exception of what they see on "ER" or "Chicago Hope". Basically it entails a lot of work and getting a lot less sleep. My residency was in family medicine which is about three years, the usual time for most primary care specialties. Some can be as long as seven or even nine years in training, especially if you want to go into the surgical specialties. Being a resident is hard to describe to other people and harder to comprehend why people do this. It was probably the toughest three years of my life. Why is that? In one word: "Call". This is the time when you stay in the hospital up to 36 hours, admitting and taking care of patients, with little or no sleep. Making sure you do the right thing and keeping the patients alive. Being away from your family every third or fourth night gets old really quick. Yet all doctor are trained that way and despite recent reforms in some parts of the country, medical training will continue to be that way. Oh well, back to my nap...

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