There's a lot of mystique surrounding the internal medicine rotation in the third year of medical school. Besides the fact that your IM core clerkship grade is considered one of those "important things" for residency, its also the rotation that best integrates the various informations you crammed into your head during the pre-clinical years. Some say its where you learn to "think like a doctor" or "be a doctor." While my IM clerkship has not turned out to be nearly as dramatic as some would make it out to be, I have seen myself making small but significant strides on being able to capably diagnose and manage patients in the acute setting. I'm on week 6 of 10, and so far it's been exhausting, but incredibly rewarding.

It's amazing how many different experiences you can pick up in a short period of time, and how patient's stories are intertwined within all of it. Some are humorous, some are sad, some are powerful.
The little old lady found wandering the streets at 3am looking for her favorite starbucks, pleasantly delirious due to a UTI.
The woman admitted with herpes zoster ophthalmicus, who always wants you to linger just a little longer when pre-rounding, and you can tell she is lonely.
The patient who has a syncopal episode while masturbating.
The woman who has never smoked a single cigarette in her life, who dies from lung cancer.
The woman with sickle cell who is allergic to opiates, forced to endure the pain of her acute crises with only tylenol, who handles herself with awe-inspiring stoicism.
The 22 year old asthmatic, who can't afford an inhaler because he spends all his money on heroin.
The man with end-stage liver disease who can't get a transplant because he can't kick the bottle.
The 600 lb man, bed-ridden for over a year, who stands for the first time, and the attending shakes your hand and says "strong work, without your help, I don't think he would have ever left the hospital."
The patient with a-fib who passes suddenly in the middle of the night.
The woman who comes in with difficulty swallowing and leaves with a terminal cancer diagnosis.

It's humbling that these experiences are considered my "education." But I don't think I've ever appreciated or enjoyed medical school more than now. Its funny that it happened on this rotation, because internal medicine can sometimes (often) be much too rhetorical and slow paced for me. But there's something to be said about the principles of internal medicine being the foundation of how medicine is practiced, regardless of specialty. And I think my experiences on this rotation have allowed me to cross another one of those thresholds of clinical competency. I found as I was getting my feet wet in third year, I was often so concerned with not screwing up that the nuances of clinical medicine whisked right by me. I was so concerned with not missing anything in my history, I missed connecting with my patient. I was so concerned with my notes being perfect, I didn't stop and think about what I was looking for in my physical exam, or why certain things were in the plan. But as you gain competency in those skills, you learn to enjoy the process as much as the result. Medicine becomes less of a checklist and more of a visceral experience. And it becomes much more fun in the process.

So tomorrow, my alarm will go off at 4:30am. And I'll groan, because I'm exhausted. But then, I'll get up, and I'll smile. Because I get to do this for a living. How awesome is that?