Some of my favourite quotes so far

"I used to use StopandGrow to stop me biting my fingers. You know what works better? Rectals. I just don't want to put it in my mouth any more."
-one of the other new F1s

"You want some Glicazide to go with that?"
- my SHO to my Registrar when he cut himself a hunk of chocolate cake (do I need to say I'm doing an Endocrinology rotation!)

I've finished my rotation in the Medical Admissions Unit and I'm starting with my Endocrinology. I've learned more in three weeks than in six years of medical school. I am terribly afraid pretty much all the time. The smalles victories take on epic proportions, like when I examine someone and find the same things as the seniors. Like when the nurses ask me to do something - prescribe something, speak to the family of a patient, whatever - and I can actually do it.

I seem to have developed an invisible wall around me that stops me getting upset as I was. I can almost feel things bouncing off. I am aware of things that would have floored me before I started medical school. I have seen people ill and in pain and I am so calm. I saw someone go into cardiac arrest and die five minutes into my first shift and I was fine, I just got on with my work afterwards. I started to get terrified that I was completely emotionally numb, really genuinely worry I had lost all compassion! Then it happened - 21 years old. Feverish. And ravaged by tumours. I felt them under my hands. His white, white skin was clammy. I did every test I could think of. I spoke to his Mum about everything I was doing. I asked the seniors if I was doing things right. They suggested a few more things. So after only a day of treatment for his infection, he went back home. To be treated palliatively. He kissed me on the cheek as he walked off the ward. I cried all the way home.