12:00 PM The platform is now open, you may begin your application.
The email caught me dead in my tracks, so much so that I nearly missed the elevator I was waiting for. Can it really be? Have three years really flown by in the blink of an eye and soon I will be a resident?
The last few years were replete with memories from touching patient encounters, exasperation from the many obstacles and shortcomings rampant in our healthcare system, and a better understanding of who I am as a person. My white coat no longer feels like a Halloween costume; it is now a tattered garb of pen stains, food stains from many meals in the middle of the night, and pockets stretched and misshapen from stuffing them full of medical equipment. The latest batch of clerks have been dispatched to the wards, looking as overwhelmed and perplexed as I did a little over a year ago.
In a few months I will no longer be a medical student, I will be a resident. I will be able to prescribe. This future reality is both terrifying and exhilarating; I often alternate back and forth between these two emotions whenever my mind wanders to the topic. Now faced with the immediate stress of hunting down reference letters, gathering documents, selecting schools and programs, it feels as though there is no time to process this new impending chapter in my life. Once the applications are complete, my focus will then shift towards visiting schools and interviewing for positions, and then subsequently studying for my licensing exam.
My mind can only begin to process how far I've come and how much further I have yet to go. But for now I take it one day at time. On patient at a time. One document at a time. One breath at a time.
The email caught me dead in my tracks, so much so that I nearly missed the elevator I was waiting for. Can it really be? Have three years really flown by in the blink of an eye and soon I will be a resident?
The last few years were replete with memories from touching patient encounters, exasperation from the many obstacles and shortcomings rampant in our healthcare system, and a better understanding of who I am as a person. My white coat no longer feels like a Halloween costume; it is now a tattered garb of pen stains, food stains from many meals in the middle of the night, and pockets stretched and misshapen from stuffing them full of medical equipment. The latest batch of clerks have been dispatched to the wards, looking as overwhelmed and perplexed as I did a little over a year ago.
In a few months I will no longer be a medical student, I will be a resident. I will be able to prescribe. This future reality is both terrifying and exhilarating; I often alternate back and forth between these two emotions whenever my mind wanders to the topic. Now faced with the immediate stress of hunting down reference letters, gathering documents, selecting schools and programs, it feels as though there is no time to process this new impending chapter in my life. Once the applications are complete, my focus will then shift towards visiting schools and interviewing for positions, and then subsequently studying for my licensing exam.
My mind can only begin to process how far I've come and how much further I have yet to go. But for now I take it one day at time. On patient at a time. One document at a time. One breath at a time.
