Grand Rounds, my favorite

Shit shit, late late, I grabbed my brief, slammed car door and ran off to 2nd building. Elevator? No too slow, stairs, up up up. 2nd floor, left, room 2029. Hosh hosh there we go.

When I got to the ward, 20 or so white coated pupils are already there. A grey-haired long coated professor stood in the middle surrounded by the other whities. I sneaked in quietly, tapped a friend on his back and grinned. He just shook his head, 30 mins late.

On any other tutes, conferences or small rounds I'll have to skip the session, 15 mins late is top, 30 is intolerable. But on grand rounds, too many people are cramped into one room, you can almost dance unnoticed if you stand on the back lines. There are professors, senior residents, junior residents, guest residents and clinical med students - like myself. It is only for us students that grand rounds are fun.

For the residents, they've prespired themselves since the day before and presented their patients with outmost perfections so as not to get grilled by the consultants or professors. "Chest x-ray? Echo? ECG? ABG? Leuco? Fibrinogen? D-dimer? Glucose? ASTO? CRP? Culture?" the consultants will demand. The residents will be flipping over patients' status frantically to recall all the values. As for us students, we stood there staring at the residents lightly. Usually it's them who'd be asking us questions, now seeing them panicked and dumbfounded.. feels good.

"Ok, has anyone read that EKG and physical examination books?" the consultant asked. No one shake/nod heads. "So everyone HAVE read it?" Everyone shook head and laughed nervously. But then the consultant turned his head only toward the residents and made sharp remarks. To us he said nothing and let it go. Other times the professors would ask question, and one of the student answer it correctly. We'll be complemented like a little kid. As for the residents "how come the 5th grade students know it and you doctors dont?"

"Was that an early, mid or late systolic murmur?" the consultant asked a resident after an auscultation. He answered "uhm a late systolic, doc." The doc shook his head, glared at the resident and say "come here students, here's what pansystolic murmur sounds like." The students cheerfuly approach the doc, take turns to listen to the scope the doc held for us.

It's fun being med students in a grand round. We are immune to any of our mistake or stupidity, we are mellowed by the silver spoons the consultants and the professors offered us. At the same time that's where we see snubbish residents, who're usually in a position to drill us, now be drilled in turn. To the consultants we're like little children trying to spell alphabets, while the residents must put perfect sentences with flawless grammar.

If I'm to go on with this medical training, I'll eventually stood on the resident's shoes, that gotta suck. So enjoy it while I'm this excused newbie. I wonder how it'll feel when I get to be the professor. The center of the attention, the source of the pressure, the light of the expertise, must feel good. They deserve those respect though, after such long educational torture they've been through. As for me, a long way to go if time permits.. that's what so grand about it.