#oms3

On my year off between undergrad and med school, I decided to take a phlebotomy course because I didn’t want to be one of those doctors who are terrible at finding veins. Turns out that was the best money I ever spent towards my education. I never ended up getting officially certified, but having that experience of sticking my classmates for 6 weeks gave me so much experience that makes me confident now to be able to take blood and start IV’s. 

More than that, it really impresses attendings and residents when you can get the vein on the first try and don’t look like a fumbling mess trying to do it. 

1. Most of your time will be spent standing against a wall. Attendings will make snarky comments about how the hospital walls could stand without a student holding them up

2. You will become an expert on how to not be in the way, and literally dodge out of the way of everyone else or else suffer the wrath of an angry nurse.

3.... essentially you become a tiny version of yourself that is as close to invisible as you can get

4. You really won’t be given much responsibility, and sometimes you will essentially feel like a waste of space, getting in the way. And have to remind yourself that you’re literally paying for this so you might as well learn something.

5. A lot of your time will also be spent trying to decipher/read the mind of your residents. (When they say you can go home if you want or ask if you want to go sleep on a night shift... WHAT ARE YOU REALLY SUPPOSED TO DO?!)

6. You’ll never be pimped when you’re ready for it. ever. It will always be out of the blue or a question that you genuinely don’t know the answer to. Luck is not on the side of students. And for many attendings, no answer you give is going to be right anyway.

7. You’re literally the bottom of the Totem pull and anyone can treat you however they’d like and you just have to stand there and take it.

I didn’t realize how I got so used to a toxic work environment until I switched. My attending genuinely cares about the patients and the opinions of all of the residents and even the students. I genuinely feel heard and confident to speak up if I have a thought about diagnosis or treatment.

I find myself on edge waiting to get yelled at or talked down to. 

I don’t know if its the difference between a surgical program and an internal medicine program, or the difference between hospitals. But I’m so much happier than I have been in quite a while.