As a medstudent, we have ‘lots’ of time (except before the exams
of course). The word ‘lots’ is in
accordance to the theory of relativity, when compared to the time we actually
have when we become an intern. Interns are the lowest in the chain of
superiority at a hospital. And by lowest, I mean below ground level- below the
clerical staff, the nurses, sometimes even the patients. So, it is pretty
obvious that loads of work gets dumped on us (and it may not always involve
saving a life!). Hence the little time that we manage to sneak for ourselves is
precious- almost magical! Most of it is spent zzzzzzzzzzing. And when we do manage
to get around friends and go out- the conversations almost invariably go back
to the dump we just escaped from- the hospital.
Intern talk is almost always
about patients- the cases that you have seen for the first time, the cases that
you were able to diagnose on your own, the lives you saved, the lives you could
have saved, the new procedures that you did, the procedures that you messed up,
the patients you successfully handled (yea yea handled- we don’t get to treat so easily),
blah blah blah…. In short (well I was already too elaborate), the conversations
always comes back to intern experiences! And from the looks of this ‘Scrubs’ scene-
it is a global phenomenon.
Examples from my own internship-
a group of us went to Chandigarh (for an exam actually, but it was a mini-trip,
and I didn’t even give the exam!) and in the train we exchanged places just to
make sure we could talk to each other (oh yea- you get to see your co-interns very
rarely and that too mostly for just hello-hi-bye-bye!) What was the sole topic
of our conversation in that 4 hour long ride? You guessed it right- what we did
and what we didn’t do as interns, comparing notes! By the end of the journey,
the people around us knew we were big-mouthed-budding-doctors. Birthdays, parties,
girls-night-out, picnics, anything- if you are around fellow medicos, there is
no escape from doc-talk. Even lunch time small talk is limited to the hospital…
So what happens when we are with
non-medicos and family (I come from no medical background family)… Simple. You try
to participate in the conversation as long as possible and eventually you
manage to shift it to your favourite topic- the medical world! By the end of my
internship, my parents knew how an ascitic tap, a pleural tap, a bone marrow biopsy….
blah blah are done. Oh yeah, they also get grossed out sometimes most of the times by the gory details (I have been requested to keep my mouth shut on multiple occasions at the dinner table!)
Why does this happen. Well,
obviously because we spend so much time in the hospital that we rarely have
time for anything else. One would think that once we are out of the hospital,
we would want to forget about it, think and talk about something else more
cheerful, something different. But that’s not the case. Once we become interns,
an entire new world opens in front of us. Everything is exciting, hands-on
experience. Everything we talk about is first hand and we are proud of it (at
the conscious or the sub-conscious level). We love it when we succeed and we
hate it when we fail- we try to learn from all that and sharing these little
experiences with others is what gets us through and what makes us realize our
mistakes. Sharing the experiences is expanding the knowledge.
(For those of you who managed to
read it till here- My apologies. Am writing after a long time- hence the unnecessary
small talk and the word diarrhea! Also the title of my blog says it all- they
are Ramblings!)
P.S The ‘we-don’t-know-about-anything-else'
is a teeny weeny bit exaggerated!
No copyright infringment intended.
