Highway to the Danger Zone

I can't help humming Kenny Loggins unforgettable Top gun theme song to myself. Two rotations down, this third year of medical school is under full steam and it is everything that we hoped it would be. Early mornings, late nights, night call, challenging (if not demanding) attendings. Maybe they are assigned to us or we to them but it seems to take three out of the four weeks in the rotation to figure out if you are pissing them off, holding your own or actually doing well and impressing them.

If you got into medicine for all the right reasons then you love people. The best part of third year is getting to work with real patients. No longer the contrived cases and standardized actors from the first two years. Now we are working with your mother you brother your grandfather, and even your kids.  We get to meet them and learn everything about them (in 15 minutes) and help them to stay aware of their health and take the steps to improve and maintain it.

Gone are the days of memorizing facts in the library, or slugging through hours of daily lectures. We are in new territory now, and with that comes a certain degree of terror.  We work hard but we are still scared that we don't know enough and that we are being entrusted with responsibility that we don't deserve. While we have been put through the ringer by passing the first of three steps in our certification boards which is supposed to mean that we know enough to be safe, and we are being watched like hawks by our attendings and the nurses and medical assistants and your mother, wife or daughter that came with you to your appointment or is sitting by your bed side while you are too out of it to speak for yourself.

You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go