AAMC Reporter, July 2000: Need It or Not, Florida Gets a New Medical School

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 10

JORDAN J. COHEN, M.D., PRESIDENT

JULY 2000

July 1 Remembrances

To mark the time-honored start of residency, the AAMC Reporter asked doctors to share their memories of their first day as a resident.

Finding the answers and the cafeteria

On my first day I picked up 30 patients, discharged five, and admitted five-on a service with an intern and attending only. I administered intravenous chemotherapy in between dealing with patients ravaged by chemotherapy-induced leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. I didn't even have time to be frightened. One week later and 10 pounds lighter, I was ordered to the cafeteria by the nurses. Thank heaven for nurses!

Kristine M. Lohr, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Rheumatology
University of Tennessee, Memphis

Getting a jump on things

On June 30 the new interns went to our program director's house for a barbecue with the other residents and faculty. As the evening progressed, I became more and more nervous. I suddenly felt like I didn't know anything at all! Why hadn't I done more surgery rotations this spring or read more the last couple of months? What would happen if my beeper went off tomorrow and I didn't know what to do? I didn't even know where the operating room was! I went from the barbecue straight to the hospital to read all of my patients' charts, learn the computer system, and find the OR. When my beeper finally went off the next day, miracle of miracles, I knew what to do! I have answered more pages than I care to count since then, but none are as memorable as that first beep on July 1.

Rebecca Minter, M.D.
General Surgery Resident
University of Florida College of Medicine
Chair, AAMC's Organization of Resident Representatives

Answering the dreaded question

I started my residency differently than most, with a month of orientation and then a rather light rotation. That might have afforded me a period of adjustment or just prolonged a period of naivete. The anxiety slowly sweltered within me each day as I heard horror stories from my fellow residents. Was I ready? The fog finally began clearing my first night of OB call. I remember a recurrent question that triggered an ache in the pit of my stomach: "What do you want to do with the patient now, doctor?" I felt like answering: "Why are you asking me?" By the next morning, however, I felt like a veteran, and somehow I was ready for more.

Sumi Makkar, M.D.
Family Practice Fellow
Medical Editing
Georgetown University

A change of schedule

After orientation at Boston Children's Hospital, I found out that I would be on call that night in Massachusetts General Hospital's pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. I dutifully contacted my wife and proceeded to the ward. Needless to say, I did not sleep at all during that first 36-hour period, and when I arrived home the next evening, my wife had prepared a wonderful (and quite expensive) dinner. Unfortunately, a combination of sleep deprivation and anticipation of the next night led me to be more interested in sleeping than eating. I awoke at 3 a.m. and enjoyed a great cold dinner.

F. Sessions Cole, M.D.
Vice Chair, Pediatrics
Washington University School of Medicine

Sound advice

Having attended medical school in Spain, I was not ready for the enormous clinical load waiting for me on my first day of internship at the Philadelphia General Hospital in 1975. The night before I started, I called my father, who is a general practitioner, and said: "Dad, my patients won't survive me. I want to be a Spanish teacher." He told me I was just having "good intern jitters" and advised me to find a nurse, preferably an older one, and introduce myself. He said: "For the first week of your internship, do what she tells you!" Advice to live by.

Ronald Kanner, M.D.
Professor of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Chair of Neurology, Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Caring for the sickest of the sick

My first days of fellowship training in transplant surgery were far more dramatic to me than my first days of residency. The first day on service I admitted a 35-year-old woman who had undergone isolated pancreas transplantation. At the time of admission, her fever was 107 degrees without any obvious source. The next day I witnessed the rapid progression of severe cardiomyopathy in a 40-year-old kidney transplant recipient who appeared to be dying right before my eyes. How she survived is still a mystery. The situations and names have changed over the past six years, but I continue to be challenged by unusual presentations of common illnesses and common presentations of unusual illnesses in the transplant recipients I care for.

Deb Sudan, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Stranger in a strange land

I was anxious not only because this was the first day that I was going to see patients as a physician, but also because I had just moved to a new country and did not even have an apartment. The scariest part of the first few days was the need for immediate action. The most surprising aspect was how fast knowledge that I had learned in school came back to me when confronted with a real situation.

H.P Attarian, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Washington University School of Medicine

22 March 2001