Wander & Wonder

As I’m nearing the end of medical school, I’ve been thinking more and more about becoming a resident. I’m excited, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not ready. Last week on my ER shifts, every time I ran into something I didn’t know how to do, I caught myself thinking, “I need to be able to do this as a resident.” As you can imagine, it quickly became overwhelming. I ended up sharing this feeling with my staff physician, who has been working in the ER for over 40 years, and he told me, “You don’t just become a butterfly the day you become a resident. You’ll still be a caterpillar.” It was a good reminder that the point of medical training, including residency, is not to know everything (which is neither realistic nor desirable), but rather to keep growing once I’m there.