“That” Med Student June 23, 2008

Today I think I became “that” med student. That probably makes no sense, so let me clarify. This entire year I have heard stories about medical students on rotations before me that would buy the team dinner or make cookies for the team or bring the team coffee in the mornings. I pretty much decided that all of those med students were suck-ups, brown-nosers, gunners, etc. etc. Until today…

So I have spent this last 2 weeks with my most amazing team yet. They are really cool and give me responsibility with my patients without overloading me to the point where I am not learning anymore. During this two weeks they are constantly bringing in snacks into our team room and after 3 times of them offering cookies and cheez-its and pastries, I just stopped resisting! And to top it all off, they didn’t make me come in to take call after my CPX on Friday because my team was dissolving and it would be pointless. Now to get to the point of the story… As I said, our team is “dissolving” meaning that the hospital is transitioning from 5 teams down to 4 and my team is disappearing. As a thank you to the team I went to Noah’s Bagels and bought some bagels and some tasty fruit coffee cakes. What’s so funny is that when I brought the food in this morning I had this epiphany that from the outside I look like one of those med students that I secretly despised! I guess the only thing that is keeping me from feeling like a hypocrite is that I really wanted to do this for the team for no other reason than to do my part for the team. They have fed me well and treated me as part of the team, so the least I can do is spend a couple bucks on some breakfast. I don’t expect that it will change my evaluation or effect how they think of me. I really just finally felt like a part of the team and it was my turn to reciprocate with the snacks!