It's not senioritis

I just got an eMail from the administration saying that fourth years often suffer from "epidemic levels" of senioritis. I know that many people Are familiar with senioritis, but this is not senioritis. Senioritis progresses. When you are in grade school, senioritis starts to set in a couple of days before school starts. In middle school, it starts a week to ten days from the end of school. By the time you get to high school, and you are getting ready to graduate, senioritis really becomes pronounced, and a good three weeks to a month before they graduate, seniors will start to slack off. For those who go to college, senioritis is a good six weeks long, with a significant prodromal period of about 3 months, where you go throught the motions, but only half-heartedly. The reason why is because you are a few scant months from graduating, and either you a) Have plans all set up for after college, and you really don't give a damn, or b) you have no plans lined up for college, and since the last few months won't make a difference on that, you also don't give a damn.

But for medical school, it is something entirely different. For med school, what you have is something that tends to strike far more precipitously, and lacks the prodromal period of college. On match day, which is the 16th, med students find out what their future will be. For some, it is a question of where they will be for the next few years, while for others it is also a question of what they will do for the rest of their life. On the 16th, you find out what residency program you will be attending. After that, all  you need to do is graduate, and usually, by that time, there are no more big tests left. Once you have that knowledge, you suddenly go from needing good letters of recommendation, and high praise, to just needing to not kill too many patients. For this reason, fourth year medical students, after 20 years of education now drawing to a final close, tend to get a little cavalier. This was first described by Dr. Shem in the 70's as "FUBIGMI." FUBIGMI is an acronym like AIDS. Like AIDS, it is the progression of a lesser disease (HIV/senioritis) and is usually terminal. FUBIGMI stands for F_k yoU    Buddy,     I         Got       My       Internship.

Personally, I am going to do my best to resist it. I might as well try to finish strong. The only problem is that I will have a significantly reduced bullsh*t tolerance. I also have a couple of tests I will have to pass, so I might as well hold my breath for a little while longer. Also, my big day is going to be on Monday. Monday I find out if I matched somewhere, or if I will have to scramble into a program. I really hope I do not have to scramble. If I have posted nothing by 7pm CST monday, you may assume the worst.

As for match day itself, I find it interesting that they were fishing around for people with interesting stories to tell about their journey to becoming a doctor. Of course, being a Marine grunt wasn't what they were looking for; oh no, that is waaaay to boring!

/sarcasm

What they went looking for are people who had one of the following stories:

1. They decided to become a doctor after surviving a serious illness


2. They decided to go into otolarnygology


3. They are going into surgery and want to talk about robotic surgery


4. They are going into pathology, and want to talk about stem cell research


5. They are going into Physical Medicine and Rehabilition.


6. They have a connection to New Orleans.

I guess that I could have tried to get myself interviewed, but I am part of a rather large trend in my class towards apathy regarding our own institution. You see, we have had to go through a whole lot of hoops to get where we are now. We had to take another bite out of a shit sandwich everyday, and all too often, we have found that we would just get served more for our troubles. There are a lot of awards that are presented the graduates. There have been few votes for any of them. Nobody really wants an award, except for the self-serving sycophants, who fortunately are unable to garner enough support to steal such awards. We have, as a class, gone through a lot. We have had to go through this CS testing, and a lot of other stuff. I remember having to cancel a trip to California to see a friend because they changed the date for a completely useless lecture at the last minute, and then wouldn't cut me any slack on attendance. So, a 2hour lecture cost me hundreds of dollars in non-refundable airline tickets. I never even got so much as a "sorry." I also look at how little guidance we received on our applications. I look at how we scored so low as a class on our Step 1 because they simply ignored how impportant that was for the students to do well, and instead focused on what *they* thought we needed to know (getting tested on the hormone cycles of sheep for embryology springs to mind). Hell, during the first two years, I found that my scores improved when I stopped going to lectures, and just taught myself through commercially available study guides. So, on Friday, a lot of people will be done with that. A lot of people will feel that they have suffered enough, and that since we will have to suffer even more in the future, we might as well take it easy for a few months.

After twenty years, I would argue that it has been earned.

Respectfully Submitted,
-doc Russia