The end of the world as we know it

Third year starts soon. In a month. The third year of medical school, affectionately known as "hell" to those who survive it, is the most intense, stressful, and exhausting phase in one's medical education. It is the year in which one leaves the comfortable confines of the lecture hall, home for the first two years, and ventures into the strange and mysterious world of the clinical clerkships. One spends hour upon hour in the hospital or "on the wards". One enters into a lifestyle filled with such phrases as "on call" and "post-call" and "pre-round" and "getting pimped." One aschews book learning for the infinitely more educational experience of actually interacting with patients and then being randomly and sunjectively graded on the ability to spew forth random bits of obscure, irrelevant medical knowledge when put in the spotlight in front of a large group of people (this, my friends, is what is known as "pimping.")

Of course, this to me is all the stuff of legends. Pure myth. Stories whispered in hushed tones in sterile hallways. I have yet to experience any of it. But that will soon change.

We were recently told of the track in which we will be operating throughout the course of our third year. The track you are on determines the order in which you do your clinical rotations. And there is a lot of strategizing that goes into this. And with strategy comes a huge amount of conflicting information. Start out hard. Start out easy. Take Medicine (internal medicine) first so you are fresh. Take medicine last so you know what you are doing. Take medicine in the middle so you are not burned out. Take OBGYN late so the residents will let you catch babies. If you did path, try to take Surgery early because that's what you will know the most about. But not too early. And then add to this the strategizing required to end up on the same track as your path buddies: If you put down track G as your second choice and I don't include it at all, but put down tracks A and B as my third and fourth, then we should all end up with track F...

Well, it worked. I got placed with my team in track F. The one that starts with Peds (pediatrics, fairly challenging, some call), is followed by surgery (intense hours, very hard) and has medicine in the middle, split by a week-long respite. Nice. I think. In the end it probably won't matter.

Last friday a couple pathology residents sat down with us to give us some informal advice about getting through third year in one piece.

How To Get Through Third Year in One Piece:
1. Accept the fact that you will not be getting honors. This will make everything much easier.
2. Never make your fellow students look bad.
3. If one of your fellow students intentionally makes you look bad, make them suffer. Do not back them up. Do not help them out.
4. Never be late. Its one of the only things you can control, and one of the only things anyone actually remembers.
5. Do not overtly kiss up to the residents. Most of them will see right through it (see item number 2).
6. Always have a pen.
7. Consider taking a sick day every rotation, though you might get penalized for it.
8. Never ask to leave early. But if someone tells you to leave early, immediately do so with no questions asked.

Items 1 and 4 are going to be very difficult for me. But, weird as it may sound, I am kind of looking forward to diving in. I think it will be fun. In a mind-numbing, soul-crushing kind of way.