"Disculpe, Doctorita"

I’m not going to lie… hearing patients call me ¨little doctor¨ is kind of a sweet feeling. We have officially finished our second day of the San Martin Clinic and it has been Fourth of July, Christmas, and chocolate balls of goodness all rolled into one. What really blows my mind is that the blue scrubs and the stethoscope are enough to make people put their utmost faith in my ability to help them—and I suppose that someone else believing in me makes me…believe in me, too. I guess in the back of every medical student’s mind is that nasty little beady-eyed man saying ¨YOU WILL NEVER CUT IT AS A DOCTOR, BWAHHHHH¨… well maybe not in the back of EVERY medical student´s mind… but definitely sometimes in mine.
Anyway, back to the clinic… all of the people are delightful and so gracious that even when we are all tired as a you-know-what in a you-know-where, we are all smiling and laughing and hugging the eleventy million children that are constantly hanging around asking for some more Flintstone´s vitamins. It’s a simultaneously thrilling and frightening experience because, I suppose, we will be REAL doctors in only a matter of years. We won’t get to fall back on the talents of the doctors that we have with us now.

Another crazy aspect of all this is that while I’m already 23 years old, I still feel like a little kid running around playing doctor. Women who are a good three, four, five years younger than I am come in seeking help and they already have entire families and I can only think while I’m trying to do my best to help them that they know so much more about life than I do and I still can’t definitively say that I ever will know everything that they know. I also performed four pregnancy tests today…and I am not going to lie…I was just as nervous as the women for whom I was performing them.

Anyway—so far a list of the things that I have learned from working at the clinic: 1) chewable vitamins can get you very far with 4 and 5 year-olds 2) sometimes the only medicine someone needs is a little bit of attention… and maybe an otoscope (med students will get that) and 3) a little trust can go a long way… be it between a doctor and a patient, two spouses, parents and children, and also between friends.

High Fives all around,
The Kejner-ator