When I was a medical student attending teaching conferences at the hospital, I was pretty shameless about my fatigue. I would start nodding off, and my blinks would became progressively exaggerated, eventually I would end up with gaps in my recollection of the past hour; unless of course, a trusty friend was sitting next to me to play hang-man with.
Now that I am a resident, I am probably more fatigued; however, not once have I even thought about feeling tired during conference. What is the secret? A new coffee laced with lethal doses of caffeine? No dear reader, my stimulant is fear itself. I have so little medical knowledge that I feel perhaps I suffered from a head trauma after graduation which would logically explain my complete memory loss. So now I must cram every fact I can get my ears on, into my brain.
Additionally, we all realized that residents, though they provide cheap labor that real live doctors would rather not do; are still dispensable and can be fired. I worked very hard to get a job which is going to be quite likely a hellish journey, that will make me question my sanity at every turn, but will in the end be what I always dreamed of doing - a whole lot of paperwork and sometimes making someone feel a little bit better.
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