The Intern Blues(123)

Well, at least I got some rest. And I did get to spend a lot of time alone with Carole. That was very nice; we had a good time together. And I even got to read a book while we were away. An actual novel, not a pediatric textbook. It’s the first nonmedical book I’ve read all year. It was getting to the point where I was starting to think I wasn’t allowed to read any sentence unless it had at least one six-syllable word that had a Latin root in it. Reading this novel was tough at first. I’m so conditioned by reading medical stuff that I kept falling asleep after reading one paragraph. But I finally managed to get through it. I guess there’s still hope for me.

Well, so much for my fond memories of our trip. It’s now the middle of April, and the big news is there’s only a little more than two months of this misery left. Yes, winter’s over, the snow’s all melted, the leaves are starting to appear on the trees, the addicts are starting to hang out on the street corners again, and the cockroaches are mating. I guess the cockroaches are always mating, but I swear, I got back to my apartment after flying back from Cancún and there were at least four times the usual number of roaches hanging around. We had managed to cut down the number remarkably for a while but now they’re back in full force. It was an awe-inspiring sight, opening the front door, happy to be home after narrowly escaping being killed in the floods, and looking inside to see that my apartment had turned into Cockroach Heaven! I’ve been fighting the war ever since, but it looks as if they’ve definitely established a foothold. It’s time to start thinking about moving out of the Bronx! I think Carole may ultimately win this battle. She’s wanted me to get out of here for months.

I’m spending the last two weeks of the month in the OPD at Jonas Bronck. I’ve been on call two nights so far and it really hasn’t been bad. We’ve left the ER at the stroke of midnight both nights, which is kind of amazing. We seem to be between seasons right now. Respiratory infection season has ended, and diarrhea and dehydration season hasn’t started yet. At least that’s what all the attendings keep saying to explain why it’s so quiet. They talk about it like these diseases are sports. You know, in a couple of weeks I expect the chairman of the department to come down to the ER and throw out the ceremonial first diarrhea and dehydration patient to open the season officially. Well, whatever’s causing it to be quiet, I’m not complaining. I just hope it keeps up.

I’m assigned to neurology clinic on Friday mornings. What a lot of fun that is! The clinic is held on the fifth floor of Jonas Bronck, and you get there at about nine o’clock and the waiting area is already filled with what looks like hundreds and hundreds of kids seizing and shaking and yelling at the top of their lungs. Every kid has a chart that contains at least five thousand pages, and you have to read the entire chart to figure out what the hell is going on. And because there are so many patients scheduled, you have to move really fast or else you wind up staying all afternoon. This is the first time I’ve been assigned to neuro clinic this year, and I’m glad I have only a couple of sessions there before the month ends. If I had to imagine what hell might be like, I don’t think I could come up with anything worse than being permanently assigned to neuro clinic. Get the feeling that I’m not going to be a neurologist when I grow up?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve started thinking about what I’m going to do when I’m finished with this internship and residency. The more I think about it, the worse the headache I wind up getting. I can see the advantage of specializing in something, but I also can see the advantage of not specializing in anything. I could go right into practice after I’m done, or I could do a fellowship. So far the only thing I’ve definitely decided is to put off making a decision about this for as long as I can. It’s really very early. I don’t even have to start panicking until about next year at this time. I’ve got all the time in the world.

I’m also getting a little worried about July. In July I’m going to be magically transformed into a junior resident. I like the idea of not being an intern anymore, but I’m not so sure I like the idea of being a resident. I mean, residents are people the interns turn to when they have questions and concerns. Residents are figures of authority. For some reason, I can’t seem to imagine myself as an authority figure. I can’t imagine giving interns advice. I wouldn’t trust advice I gave to myself. Of course, that sounds kind of ridiculous.





Bob


APRIL 1986



During the course of training, each doctor develops his or her own individual style of dealing with the family of a patient who has died. The evolution of this style occurs mostly through trial and error; with enough experience and having made enough mistakes, you gradually develop a method that makes both you and the family comfortable. There’s no way this can be taught in a classroom or through reading books or articles.