Here's Looking at You Kid!

Over the last four years of med school I've worked with dozens of different physicians of many different specialties, all in varying stages of their practice. As a medical student, you're the bottom of the food chain. Your opinion rarely matters and no matter how old you actually are, you're usually referred to as "kid". Now that I'm getting closer and closer to adding those two important letters at the end of my name, I'd like to think that I would be taken slightly more seriously as a medical professional. Well, that's not always the case.

A lot of the doctors I've worked with are at least a couple of generations older than me and therefore will always see me as a somewhat of a child. On the rare occasion that I made an amazing diagnosis or done a procedure near-flawlessly, did a doctor pat me on the back and treat me as his/her (almost) equal. But the problem lies in the fact that because not only do I look like I could play I high-schooler on a TV drama, but I really am kind of young- 27 to be exact. And for the same reasons my father will probably never head my advice, nor will these doctors see me as being on the same level. Which is yet another reason why I am oh-so anxious to graduate in a little over seven months (take note of the countdown on the right side of the screen).

As a medical student, I am always respectful of the physicians and other medical professionals I work with. I wish I could say that the respect is always mutual, but often it's not. I don't know if it all goes back to this idea of the learning hierarchy of medicine, where med students and interns are typically hazed by those above them. Quite honestly I think that docs do that just to make those below them feel like it's so hard to be a doctor, and "look how smart and tough I am for being where I am now." Then you have those docs who announce in a very grandiose tone, "Back in my day, medical students kept their mouth shut and stood in the corner of the room." Yeah, I got that one from the same doc who said to me while I was pregnant, "This is why women shouldn't go into medicine".

I guess my point in all this is that just because I'm a medical student and fairly younger than my superiors, doesn't mean I deserve to be treated like a teenager who needs some serious discipline. I'm a grown woman with a husband and a child of my own. I'm obviously mature and driven enough to have made it this far. And with close to eight years of schooling under my belt, I may actually have some knowledge and skills that are worth something. So when I finally get to climb from the trenches that is residency and become an attending physician, I hope to remember how I felt as a mere medical student and treat my future students with respect.... even if their white coat is a few inches shorter than mine.