Reverse Saunter

Or more to the point, my short white coat.

When I graduate from medical school (assuming said day isn’t thwarted by my ineptitudes in the meantime), the greatest feeling will not be the moment I receive my diploma and officially become an M.D. Nay. It will be the day that I drench my white coat in lighter fluid and set the damn thing on fire – twirling ’round and ’round in unbridled ecstasy, dousing myself in bubbly and wafting the fumes of burning polyester into my nostrils.

Oh sweet relief, what a day that will be.

I’ll get the long coat, and atleast 85% of the things that irritate me in a given day will blissfully be no more. Grant you, the long white coat still has its inherent troubles. I currently (and I expect will always be the case) am unable to ride in an elevator at the hospital. I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. There’s never a shortage of patients or family members who ride along and insist on staring at you the entire time. Even worse, some take to small talk and calling me “Doc”, asking where I’m headed, how much sleep I’ve gotten, etc. It’s sweet of them, but leave me alone. You’re not my patient. I’m not even a doctor. You’re a stranger, I’m a medical student, and it’s an elevator. I want to ride in peace and quiet.

The worst, however, manifests from interactions with those who DO know the difference b/w a short and a white coat, and constitutes the bulk of my curse. Some examples:

1.) Staff. Just today (and the genesis of this rant), dozing off in the hospital library. A nice cozy couch that was soft, it was warm, and it was quiet. I don’t even get these plush of sleeping conditions at home. What happens? A librarian approaches and states she regrets to inform me but they don’t like people sleeping in the library. As I have been conditioned as a medical student to take all abuse by simply rolling over and offering they kick my stomach this time rather than my ass, I asked for no explanation. My feet were not up, I was not snoring, I wasn’t monopolizing an area that people wanted to use to study. I used to nap in there all the time last year. There’s no good reason. But I look young and I had my short white coat. If I’d been an attending, she would have offered me a fucking blanket.

2.) Nurses. They’re the worst actually. They exist at the bottom of the medical food chain.? Still, they are more essential to patient care than I am, so they can pull rank on me and they do so cause they’ve been consistently abused as well and now they see someone they can turn the tables on. This happened today also. I walk into a patient’s room on contact isolation (gown up, glove up, mask up) and the nurse is nice enough to wait until I leave the room to lecture me in the hallway about not getting prepped properly. I gloved and masked, but didn’t wash my hands ahead of time or gown up. These are standard precautions and I know they aren’t hard and fast, but she’s on autopilot which would be irritating but tolerable if this applied to everyone who entered the room as I did. But it doesn’t. It applies to the student they can kick around and make feel stupid. I watch the attending walk in without so much as foaming his hands up and the nurse turns into a statue. Screw you very much.

I’ve even had a nurse I was just joking around with about church pull this card. “You can’t tease me, you’re wearing a short white coat.”? And she walked off. This is why a resolution for the new year not to wish ill will on people is a herculean feat.

3.) Patients. Bless their hearts, this one isn’t maliciousness on their part and I hate it not because of irritation, but because of personal shame. I’m often the only person with a white coat on that spends more than 10 minutes with them in a given day. But often times the attending doesn’t let me in on all aspects of treatment. Often times I know but don’t have the medical knowledge. And everytime, if they want something to be done, I can’t do it cause I have no authority to write orders or make decisions. I’m completely expendable. But they don’t see the short coat. They look to me for help. And I have said too many times, “I’m just a medical student”, to ever forget how agonizing the feeling is. To feel utterly useless.

……I’m gonna stop ranting about this now. 5 more months. All new problems begin (worse problems really), but man. I just want these ones to go. away.