July 1st

Today is a big day for a bunch of new physicians. New interns all across the country will be called “doctor” by patients, colleagues, and staff, for the first time today. At most residency programs, new interns start on July 1^st. Orientation and introduction to the program and hospitals start a few weeks earlier so you may have already seen posts of new interns commenting on their experiences: being called doctor, giving orders, wearing their longer white coats, etc. But, generally, today is the day. It’s also the day that each class progresses to the next year of residency training, with more responsibility than they had the year before to their patients and to the residents coming up behind them.

I remember my intern year July 1 (and that whole month, really) like it was yesterday. It was weird to have people call me Dr. Anderson but, let’s be honest, I’d been doodling Dr. Anderson and practicing my MD signature for most of college and medical school. And my grandparents had started calling me Dr. Anderson like the day I got accepted to medical school…gah, they were my biggest fans! But it was still strange to have patients and nurses calling me Dr. Anderson and, even worse, asking me questions and looking at me like they thought I knew what the heck I was doing! I was only 5 minutes removed from being a student and people were expecting me to make actual decisions! Talk about imposter syndrome creeping in! I remember being terrified to prescribe aspirin, Tums, laxatives, Tylenol, the simplest of medicines (that the patient could literally have bought over-the-counter in the time it took me to find somebody to ask if it was okay for me to prescribe it) and looking wide-eyed at nurses who asked me for the most basic of orders but I was scared to give them. 

This lasted for a few days (okay, weeks) until one of my upper level residents pulled me to the side and said something along the lines of, ‘Remember when you were applying to medical school and all you could think about was being a doctor? Well, you’re here now, no time to be scared.’ If I remember correctly, there were about 6 or 7 expletives in that very short pep talk. But I understood what he was saying…that I had walked into this very thing I’d worked so hard for and now wasn’t the time to start doubting myself or acting like I wasn’t prepared. So I took that advice and ran with it. I gave myself a pep talk every morning when I pulled on my white coat and stuffed my pager (yes, pager) into my pocket. Like I was full on Viola Davis in the mirror in my white coat: You is smart. You is kind. You is important. And it worked! As the days went on, my confidence grew. Never to the point of over-confidence, because these were peoples’ real lives and God does what He wants to, but enough confidence that I could hold my own in clinic and in the hospital and do a good job.

Intern year of residency proved to me that I could do this thing called medicine. As a family medicine intern, in the first few months, my hands had been the ones that delivered newborn babies just coming into this world and those same hands had been the ones intubating and doing chest compressions on coding patients who were leaving this world. Intern year was a crazy time. I learned more about myself and gained more respect for God in that year than I could’ve imagined. It was crazy, but it was awesome. 

As a pre-med student, shuffling through the daily requirements, BCPM classes, and studying for the MCAT, I never really understood how awesome fulfilling my dream and being able to practice medicine would be. There was no amount of doodling Dr. Anderson on my class notes or seeing my granddaddy clasp his hands and grinning his wide smile– that I can now only see in my memories– and saying, “There’s Dr. Anderson!” that could’ve prepared me for the personal satisfaction, feeling of self-fulfillment, and overwhelming gratitude that came from “making it” to doctor status.

I write this post to remind you to keep your eyes on the prize. Your July 1st (and the longer white coat) is coming. Continue to work hard and get your hands on the short white coat first! In the meantime, speak life to your dreams! Doodle that MD signature a few times to get a feel for it (but not on a prescription pad, that’s illegal). Say Dr. (your last name) a few times to hear how it sounds and put it in the atmosphere!

Just like thousands of new interns donning their long white coats and being called doctor for the first time today, you’ve got this.