Sunday, October 10, 2010

All good things

As I come to the end of my surgical rotation I note that all good things must come to an end.  This has been a fantastic rotation for me.  I have learned quite a lot about the practice of medicine both from the medical knowledge standpoint and from the practical application standpoint.  One of the biggest take home points is that my academic knowledge translates well into real world scenarios, but not always the way that I had expected.  For example - a patient with intractable nausea and vomiting whose CT scan shows gallstones doesn't necessarily have cholecystitis and should not necessarily be taken to surgery right away. 

That said, I leave this rotation feeling as if there is so much that I don't know that it is frightening.  I recognize and fully admit that I don't know everything about medicine, but at the moment I am feeling the weight of precisely how much I don't know.  From what I've been told, this is a natural feeling.  It's still uncomfortable, and I am even more aware that by the end of the clinical year I will still not know all there is to know.  My prayer is that I will know enough, and more importantly that I will recognize when I don't know what I need to know.  I think that the latter is the most important thing and I hope that I get a chance to develop that skill in the coming week. 

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