A Med School Memoir

Note: This post marks the beginning of a recurring column called How I Got To Now, which will chronicle my circuitous path to medical school.

When I was a child, my dad used to take me to round with him on the weekends. He was a busy guy–he had just opened his own private practice, and when he wasn’t at his clinic, he was usually at the hospital checking up on his patients. Needless to say, I didn’t get to see him very often, so these visits with him were always really special to me.

Most weeks, he would drop me off in the doctor’s lounge with a handful of change, and I would plop down on the tattered old couch. I would pass some time by watching game shows, buying candy bars out of the vending machine, and stealing glances into the other doctors’ mailboxes. There would usually be a pair of stethoscopes laying around, or perhaps a reflex hammer or a roll of gauze, and each week I would find a new way to amuse myself with these simple tools of my father’s trade. When I got bored, I would sometimes sneak out of the lounge and wander the halls unsupervised, creeping past the half-opened doors to patient’s rooms, occasionally catching glimpses of the sick as they slept. Continuing down the hall, past the pharmacy window, past the administrative offices, and back again, I often managed to wind up at the nursery right as the newborns were on display in the window. I would inch up on my tiptoes and peer through the window at the infants yawning into their new, fluorescent world.

I grew to feel comfortable there. When most people think of the hospital, it conjures up bad memories: the pain of a broken leg set during nasty trip to the emergency room; the stressful visits to a sick relative; the loss of a loved one. But for me, the hospital became my own little playground. I was not oblivious to my surroundings, the illnesses and all the sadness that accompanies disease–quite the opposite, in fact. I knew that people around me were sick and dying, but somehow, that never bothered me, at least not at the time. Despite everything that has happened since then, my fondness of hospitals has remained, and to this day, when I walk through those automatic doors into the chemically-clean smell of a hospital ward, I’m flooded with the warm memories of childhood and a long-lost sense of security.

Perhaps my comfort in the hospital was due to the way my father introduced me to disease. Back in those days, after I had been let loose to roam the hospital alone, I would eventually make my way back to the doctor’s lounge where he would come find me and invite me to accompany him. I still remember how he used to place his hand on my shoulder and usher me into ICU, so gently and protective. Behind those heavy doors, the nurses would fawn over me and tell me what a good doctor my dad was. I was never one to be fond of all this attention, however, and at some point, a nearby highlighter would grab my attention and beckon me to doodle on the closest prescription pad. Meanwhile, my dad would look over charts as monitors of all sorts beeped in the background. Eventually, he would enter into one of the patient’s rooms. I would continue my doodling until sometime later when I heard his voice call out for me to come in. I would cautiously peek into the room and inevitably see a frail, sick stranger wasting away beneath the hospital sheets, his arms stuck-full of tubes and covered in patches of tape. Usually, when the patient saw me, he would smile to the extent that he was able.

“I want you to meet my son,” my dad would say to his patient, as he opened his arms to me and again placed his hand on my shoulder. Then, looking at me, he would say “son, this is my friend. He is very sick, but I think he’s going to get better.” At this, his patient’s face would soften and melt into a smile. This usually set off a bit of conversation, and after a brief round of questions posed to me–like my age and favorite subjects in school–the patient would usually ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. To this, I always answered the same.

I’d smile, and look at my dad and say, “a doctor.”

It was easy, at the time, to want to be a doctor. Back then, all I knew about being a physician was that you went to the hospital and talked to people. And then, sometimes, you’d get to eat at the cafeteria where they served mashed potatoes, gravy, and fried chicken–each and every Sunday. Easily my favorite meal of the week.

Yes, at the time, it was plainly obvious–I was going to be a doctor.

As time went on, however, the clarity with which I saw my future profession became clouded by a succession of complications and doubt.

But more on that later.

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